


Bound by Destiny II, part 1

by justshyofgifted



Series: Oblivion Bound [4]
Category: Bloodbound (Visual Novels), Nightbound (Visual Novel)
Genre: Adventure, Bisexuality, Blood Kink, Blood and Violence, Canon Divergence, Dissociation, Drama, Dream Sequence, Eventual Relationships, Eventual Romance, Eventual Smut, Explicit Sexual Content, F/F, Fanfiction, Fluff and Angst, Hallucinations, Multi, NSFW, Pining, Plot, Romance, Slow Romance, Trauma, Vampires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-24
Updated: 2020-11-19
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:35:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 32
Words: 184,374
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24899293
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justshyofgifted/pseuds/justshyofgifted
Summary: While struggling with nightmares of lives she’s never lived, a shadow from the past looming over her city, and the proposed idea that her life may just be a little bit too weird to handle alone, Nadya makes sure to tell herself thateverything is perfect just the way it is.If only.When the self-proclaimed King of Vampires (and Maker of her sometimes-girlfriend and always-boss, can’t forget that little tidbit) Gaius Augustine returns intent on claiming Manhattan as the throne that was promised, she and her friends find themselves forced into the task of saving the world. But with millennia-old vampires and an Order of hunters on their heels as well as allies hiding catastrophic secrets at their backs… it won’t be an easy task. Too bad destiny didn’t exactly ask for her input.Book 4 in theOblivion Boundseries; focusing on Nadya and the events ofBloodbound 2. Completed.
Relationships: Kamilah Sayeed/Main Character (Bloodbound), Lily Spencer/Original Character(s), Serafine Dupont/Adrian Raines
Series: Oblivion Bound [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1439803
Comments: 85
Kudos: 63





	1. The Nightmares

**Author's Note:**

> _Bound by Destiny II_ and the other _Oblivion Bound_ works are based on the _Bloodbound_ & _Nightbound_ visual novels created for the Play Choices app game. 
> 
> While heavy inspiration and many plot points are taken from the original content, the _Oblivion Bound_ works are canon divergent and will deviate from the plots taken in-game.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nadya has a nice job, a gorgeous date-friend, and a calm Feral-free life. But terrifying nightmares keep her from truly enjoying all the things going for her, and the strain of it forces Nadya and her friends to reach a tipping point.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **chapter content warnings:** nightmares, hallucinations, dissociation, medication, PTSD (mild), homophobic language (brief, minor character), bruising

Except for the drawer in the fridge now explicitly labeled _‘BLOOD BAGS ONLY. LILY’S. DON’T TOUCH :)’_ (the last part of which is a joke albeit not one Nadya finds very funny) it takes Nadya possibly far too long to realize her life hasn’t really changed all that much since her discovery of vampires.

Well… unless you wanted to count the time she was nearly killed by a bunch of rabid Ferals at a period-attire-required costume ball. Or the time her boss was wrongly convicted of plotting to kill a ton of people for some selfish gains (the details of which she’s still a little fuzzy, and by now asking would just make it uncomfortable). Or when she was one second away from being Evil Vampire Politician food only to be rescued by a Less Evil and Much Older Vampire.

But those weren’t out of the ordinary for someone hurled into this world headfirst and without the pizza that was promised.

Right?

Nadya still goes to work every night and comes home (almost) every day. Though lately with the hours they’ve been pulling she ends up investing in a comfy airplane pillow for quick half-naps at her desk when she can.

She still spends her weekends like a tv sitcom montage of varying positions on the couch while her room mate plays video games and occasionally hacks into bank servers on the side.

She still fumbles over her tongue tied up in a dozen knots every time she sees the gorgeous beauty that is her We’re-Not-Using-Labels-Yet, Kamilah. Though the fact that a 2,000 years-and-then-some vampire _babe_ still finds Nadya’s utter lack of social skills charming in any possible way is a little suspicious.

_Best not to look a gift horse in the mouth._

Everything is perfect just the way it is — was — continues to be — will be going forward. Nadya says some version of these facts to herself every day; sometimes out loud and sometimes in her head. Repeats them like a mantra as she goes about her daily routines before and after work. Everything is perfect just the way it is. _Everything is perfect just the way it is._

She does this with the hope that one day she just might believe it’s true.

That one day she won’t wake up in the middle of the afternoon screaming her lungs out feeling them torn from her throat that’s still there; scrambling for all ten fingers and all ten toes because some weren’t there a second ago only she doesn’t quite remember how long ago she lost the big toe but it was definitely before the Crimean War; starving with a hunger she can’t describe but she’s sure her friends understand because that’s why Lily (jokingly) put the sticker on her blood drawer the way she did.

 _Everything is perfect just the way it is._ Except when Nadya dreams a thousand lifetimes she’s never lived and so _so_ many of them end with her drowning in innocent blood.

Never has she been more grateful for Lily’s long weekends with her girlfriend, Maricruz, down below the restless New York City streets in the Shadow Den.

Nadya takes long full swallows of tap water in between breaths. Her hand is shaking bad enough to spill but it’s just water and it’s just the bathroom sink and she’ll clean it up later. She should be lucky — just a few minutes ago she lost that hand in a duel against Catherine the Great.

_It would have grown back, but still._

_THUD. THUD. THU—UD._

Oh _great._

 _“Will you dykes stop screamin’ bloody-freakin’-murder every single god damn day?!”_ Bellows the ever-delightful upstairs neighbor. Nadya never replies; not even when he storms his stomping feet all the way down the stairwell to pound on her door enraged and miserable.

_Still — she only needs one hand to rip out a human’s tongue._

Nadya takes it back the moment she thinks it. Scrambles like she could catch every letter in the air before it floats off to wherever terrible thoughts like that go because _they weren’t her thoughts_ please, _please_ someone believe her.

When she’s showered the sweat from her body, wiped tears from her eyes and wrung the water from her hair Nadya decides, like the masochist she is, to try that _sleeping_ thing again. It’s gonna be a long day at the office if she doesn’t.

And she’d like to think she wars with herself longer than she does — that her decision isn’t already made long before she rummages around in the dark of her blacked out room and plucks her glasses case out from underneath Kamilah’s treasured copy of _Hamlet_.

But there’s no one around. And these days Nadya can only be honest when she’s alone. Even if it’s only to herself.

She opens the fake leather and feels around for two small pills; spills a bit of water on her sheets because of the shaky hands thing when she knocks them back with the rest of the glass.

She hates it — hates herself for even having considered it in the first place and then some more for actually _doing it._ But how else is Nadya supposed to hope for some slim chance of mercy and dreamless sleep?

Nadya tries a bit of meditative breathing to pass the time while she waits for the sleeping pills to kick in. Decides maybe now would be a good time to try that mantra of hers.

“Everything…” — inhale; _she doesn’t even recognize the sound of her own voice,_ exhale— “is perfect… just the… just…”

The neighbor resumes his not-so-passive aggressive elephant dance above her head. But Nadya’s weeping so loudly she can barely hear him.

* * *

Adrian rests the back of his hand against her forehead lightly. The chill of his touch makes her shiver — and more importantly brings Nadya out of wherever she was that kept her from being there with him.

But Nadya’s relief is short-lived.

“It’s been some time since I’ve had a temperature to feel but I know a fever when I see one.” She tries to wave off his concern like she has every other time, but no dice. “Why didn’t you tell me you were sick?”

“‘Cause I’m not.”

“Is that so?”

“Mmmhm…” Though it would probably help if Nadya remembered what she was _mmhm_ -ing about. But her desktop screen-saver hasn’t been updated since Windows 95 so there goes her hopes of pretending.

Adrian isn’t having it. Mindful of her not-tip-top-shape condition he grabs the arms of her desk chair and turns her slowly; his pace painfully careful and full of caution.

_Like she doesn’t know the strength he’s capable of. Like she hasn’t felt it under her own skin._

“Nadya — please Nadya look here, look at my finger.”

She remembers the last time he sounded that worried. One of the rare times the things she sees are both from her eyes and not — where she’s both the main character in the story and just another villain. Back at the _Musea Sanguis._

 _When Valdas did this to me,_ she thinks bitterly.

But Adrian can’t know about that; can’t see her as weaker and more fragile than she already is. So she sits up a little straighter in her chair — pauses Adrian’s efforts at playing doctor because there’s no way she would be able to see _the sun_ with how badly her glasses are smudged from sleep — and dutifully follows the path he traces in the air.

Nadya (with the surprising aid of Kamilah no less) had eventually managed to convince Adrian whatever psychic mind games the strange and impossibly enigmatic vampire had played on her was nothing more than a one-off. He was no less attentive but that’s just who Adrian is; she could accept that.

Kamilah was a different story. She didn’t help downplay the situation to Adrian because she was content to let Nadya deal with everything alone. Back in the Shadow Den, Nadya had confessed the painful truths of her headaches and nightmares. Hoping, praying maybe, that someone with her wealth of experience and knowledge could give a name to her torment.

Only she couldn’t. And Nadya watches her carry the weight of it every single night.

What Kamilah refuses to understand though is that Nadya is just… _so tired._ She’s tired of the questions and studies and the three PET scans because _why not buy an extremely expensive brain imaging machine for the secret lab underneath your financial empire for one single person._

Nadya knows she’s a terrible person for complaining. She knows Kamilah just wants her alive and safe and pain-free.

She’s just _so very very tired._

Adrian groans with effort as he stands. Old habits in pretending to be human, he told her once. Not that he needs to — they’re all alone up here. Nadya is convinced he just likes doing it.

“Well doctor,” Nadya teases, “tell it to me straight. Will I live?”

He doesn’t find it _nearly_ as funny.

“If you were feeling overworked you should have told me.”

“I manage constant anxiety — this is kind of just a state of being.”

“Then maybe we should get you properly che—”

“No.” 

Which is her biggest mistake; and she’s made quite a few. But no one is so adamant so quickly without looking suspicious. Nadya is no exception.

She tries to backtrack. “I just… I don’t like doctors. Actual doctors — not my boss.”

“I _am_ an actual doctor,” he corrects but it’s offhanded, “and that isn’t the point. You’re a grown woman — I know — and I don’t want to overstep.”

“Then don’t.”

Adrian closes his mouth softly; lets the words die in the back of his throat. Nadya avoids watching as he returns to his office because she knows she won’t be strong enough to keep up the act. _Remember,_ she reminds herself, _this is for the best._

It’s to Adrian’s credit when he emerges from his office come the end of the work night with his coat over his arm and a smile on his face. Even if it is a little strained around the edges.

“Ready to head out?” he asks like nothing happened. Like she wasn’t a stone cold witch to him earlier because he made the mistake of _caring._

Nadya hesitates. She had already resigned herself to taking the subway home. But rather than make it harder on herself she just nods and gathers up her things; knows he watches her every motion with sharp eyes and preternatural focus even while her back is turned.

If he isn’t convinced of her ruse by the time she joins him at the elevator he doesn’t say anything. Just holds the door open for her and makes chit-chat to fill the silence. Maybe some day she’ll be able to choke out how grateful she is for it.

When Adrian finally pulls up in front of her building, Nadya is practically already halfway out of the car. He stops her with a hand on her arm. 

“Is Lily still out?” he asks, but what he means is are _you still alone._

Nadya tries not to make it obvious when she shrugs him off.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, Adrian.”

“… See you tomorrow, Nadya.”

He doesn’t pull away until she’s in her building and the door is closed behind her.

Later on, in the middle of the day when she wakes from a deep sleep choking on the feeling of blood hot and wet and _satisfying_ running down her throat a small part of Nadya can’t help but blame him.

She shouldn’t… but she’s doing a lot of things she shouldn’t lately.

* * *

Kamilah leans back in her chair and mulls over the flavor of the wine. She’s got that face on that Nadya always worries about when they do things like this. Enigmatic; like she has thoughts but they’re probably much harsher than the words she actually says; “It wouldn’t be my first choice to pair with our meal, but it has its merits.”

“You hate it.”

“Did I say that?” Kamilah quirks an eyebrow her way and _that look_ makes Nadya squirm in her seat for ten thousand other reasons; none of which have to do with wine, the amazing fish entree in front of her, or the high-end restaurant in general.

Nadya calms herself with a sip of her own. She’s actually kind of a fan of it. Sure it was the first fruity option on the menu (after Kamilah translated, of course) but that didn’t mean it wasn’t as ritzy as every other bottle on every other table.

“You didn’t have to let me pick.”

“I wanted to see which appealed most to you.”

When Kamilah says things like that, Nadya can’t help but feel like she’s part of some grand experiment. An attempt at seeing how ‘the other half lives’ or something equally ridiculous. “Why?”

_Why let me choose something when its obviously wrong?_

Like everything she does, Kamilah chooses her answer carefully.

“You did not choose because you knew the brand, nor the label or even the translation of it. You did not choose this particular wine because you had tried it before, or because you hoped it would compliment some aspect of our meal.”

Nadya feels the tips of her ears burning hot and takes another large gulp to calm her nerves. “I picked the first thing I saw, Kamilah. It’s not that deep.”

Then Kamilah surprises her; she _smiles._ Not something overly brilliant and bright and yearning — but rare in public and rarer still these days.

“On the contrary. I have always known humans were impulsive creatures. But your impulses fascinate me, Nadya,” Her fingertip traces slender around the lip of her wine glass; holds Nadya hypnotic like everything else about her; her voice, her beauty… that striking sincerity.

“More than any other. Perhaps in ways I do not yet know how to articulate.”

At the other end of the restaurant the violinist returns from his break and resumes his melody; long, slow and rich. Like if he put Kamilah herself into song.

Without breaking their eye contact Nadya carefully turns the woman’s hand facing up by the wrist. Kamilah crooks her finger; scrapes just the tip of her nail tentatively over her human pulse point that has to be like a marching band in her supernatural ears.

Heck, Nadya doesn’t even have supernatural hearing and she catches every _thump-thump_ of her own heart clear as day.

It’s so _so rare_ that Kamilah shows this — and for this long. This kind of public affection; scandalous, salacious practically. Not like she hasn’t been constantly stroking the inside of Nadya’s calf with the tip of her boot since they sat down, though.

It had taken Nadya a couple of months (and more than a few evenings of forcing—actually forcing—Adrian to stop working, pull out the scotch, and explain exactly what the heck might be running through Kamilah’s mind for Nadya’s own mental peace) but she understands now.

Kamilah isn’t private because she’s embarrassed of Nadya. No — Kamilah is private because she is greedy for moments like these. She keeps them behind closed because they are for her eyes only; memories for her to brand onto her soul.

Kamilah weaves their hands together gracefully; the silver of Nadya’s charm bracelet curled in a possessive touch.

“Kamilah…” she whispers, and watches as the woman kisses the back of her hand reverently.

_“Nadya.”_

Only Kamilah can make her name both a warning _and_ a promise.

* * *

[TEXT]: I c SOMEONES bed is still made  
[TEXT]: gedditttttt ;););)

[TEXT]: OMG Lily stop it

Lily takes her sweet time replying. Leaves Nadya waiting… and waiting… and then there’s the sweet sweet nectar of the gods _coffee_ in front of her and there’s even a little bit of cinnamon sprinkled on top and Lily can _wait._

The coffee _needs_ her.

She takes the mug in both hands and drinks deeply — of course the brew scalds her tongue but _how is it that Gerard can make such a darn good cup of coffee every time?_

“Careful now,” says the Englishman while he goes about putting together Kamilah’s usual table setting; paper folded crisp to the financial section, “you’ll spill all over your nice blouse.”

She’ll give him that, actually. But as she brings her mug to her lips his amused smile falters, then vanishes altogether. For an old man who barely sees the sun Nadya didn’t think he could get any more pale until she sees it with her own eyes.

She follows his startled look to the red marks adorned on her wrists. Bracelets of bruises and Nadya herself was a little surprised when she caught sight of them but if memory serves Kamilah had… _ahem,_ tied the scarves a little tighter than usual.

“Oh. Ha. Uh…”

“Oh I don’t think _that_ is any business of mine,” Gerard recovers hastily, “so long as you’re aware of them, I suppose. Though I’d ask for my peace of mind that you ask Lady Kamilah to fix that for you before you leave.”

When the butler’s back is turned, Nadya touches the skin gently. It barely even hurts.

Kamilah joins them shortly after; returns the butler’s “Good evening, Lady Kamilah,” with a nod and the kind of smile she reserves only for him while she sits.

Nadya knows the routine quite well by now. Kamilah exchanges wordless pleasantries, then takes a sip of her espresso. When she’s cleared the first page of the paper’s financial reports she might join in on a conversation, but more often than not simply continues reading.

So it’s safe to say that when Kamilah pushes the paper aside and turns her seat to face Nadya fully it feels like she’s woken up in an episode of _The Twilight Zone._

“Well good morning to you too, sunshine.” Nadya smiles… and doesn’t get one back.

“Why didn’t you tell me your nightmares were getting worse?”

The color drains from Nadya’s face. _There goes the mood._

Behind them, Gerard makes a point of clearing his throat far louder than necessary. “You know — I think I might have forgotten to grab the laundry tonight.” He quickly rinses off the last of his dishes and takes his leave of them.

Kamilah waits expectantly in silence. She won’t be repeating herself. Only Nadya can’t muster up the courage to even look her in the eyes anymore.

Instead she fiddles with her nails in her lap. “I guess pretending not to know what you’re talking about is out of the question…”

“Astute,” replies the vampire curtly.

“Any chance I could beg for this to happen any other time but now?” But that just gets her a raised eyebrow in reply so, _yeah no._ And the idea of waiting out the patience of a woman like Kamilah is borderline _laughable._ Yet Nadya — she just can’t. Like the idea physically has her in knots and the biggest one is on her tongue which she kind of needs to, you know, speak.

“Please,” and she hates how _pitiful_ she sounds; how _weak,_ “please Kamilah can we… can we not ruin this?”

“I don’t grasp your meaning.”

 _“This._ Us, right now. After a really good date and—and a really good night and… the morning or-whatever-after is supposed to be good too and if we start talking about it I just…” _I’m going to ruin it like I ruin everything._

Though she’s thrown for a loop when Kamilah reaches out; places a firm palm on Nadya’s knee and waits, permanent and present, until she gets what she wants. 

And maybe Nadya gives a little bit too much too easily. “You already know what’s happening. What else do you want me to say?” _Yes, of course they’re getting worse._ But if she admits that, she can’t pretend any more.

“You may sleep through these night terrors of yours, Nadya, but perhaps it would benefit you to realize it is you alone that does.”

 _No it doesn’t — it doesn’t benefit her at all._ In fact the realization of it makes her queasy. Suddenly Nadya wishes she hadn’t guzzled half of her coffee and daily sugar intake.

“I didn’t mean to…” _didn’t mean to choke on my words,_ “to wake you.”

“I believe you. If you had maybe you would have been honest with me from the beginning.” Kamilah definitely doesn’t miss the way her heart skips a beat; her frown deepens.

“I—I’ve been honest with you…”

“How easily you lie.”

“Okay — okay _mostly;_ I’ve been _mostly_ honest with you.” The more she talks the harder it gets for Nadya to keep the edge out of her tone. She’s not had a restful sleep in weeks, darn it, she’s owed a little snappiness.

Unlike Adrian though, Kamilah doesn’t take kindly to her attitude. She leans back in her seat with one leg over the other and if _this_ is how she treats the people she does business with no wonder she’s one of the most powerful executives in the country.

“And pray tell how am I to fulfill my promise to you with only _mostly-truths?_ How are _mostly-truths_ able to better help me understand your suffering so that somehow I may discover a way to ease it?”

“Maybe because you keeping your promise isn’t my first priority right now.”

“But it is mine.”

“It’s not about _you,_ Kamilah.”

“Isn’t it?”

Nadya grits her teeth. “No. It isn’t. None of this is about _you. I’m_ the one going through it all, not you.”

Her words are bitter at the back of her throat all the way up to the tip of her tongue and beyond. Like something thick and dark and foul that seeps from her pores and just… _out._

After a moment Kamilah takes her espresso and sips it idly. It’s something to do with her hands that isn’t harmful, something to do with her mouth that isn’t scolding.

Nadya thinks of a dozen different ways to apologize in the following quiet. One day she might even pluck up the courage to say them.

“What happened?” She asks instead, and watches Kamilah’s reaction. The stiffness of her breaks Nadya’s heart. “You said it yourself; I’m asleep. And I don’t always remember —”

“Last night included.”

She nods. “Last night included. So… please? Please.” Which is far too much begging for someone actually terrified to get their answer.

But she’s a glutton for punishment. That much is crystal clear.

For a moment it looks like Kamilah is ready to walk away; that she’s had enough. Then she changes her mind. It hits Nadya way too late that the woman is shifting in her seat; that she’s _uncertain._

“That bad, huh?”

“It is not an incident I wish to repeat.”

“Like I do?” And she totally deserves the glare sent her way. “You know what I mean.”

“You were in immense distress, Nadya!” Kamilah very nearly shouts. Though even that holds her usual husked tone; her inner silence. She doesn’t raise her voice out of rage and that knowledge is scaring the both of them.

 _What it means_ is scaring the both of them.

“You tossed and turned and nothing would wake you. My every effort was wasted — I would have had better luck rousing a statue to life! I find myself despairing to think of what it must be like when you sleep alone in your own bed. Without someone to at least try… even if in vain. Without someone to…”

 _Don’t stop now._ She has to hear it; she _has_ to. “Without someone to _what,_ Kamilah?”

“Without someone to hold you down and keep you from hurting yourself.” 

Suddenly her wrists are a far less pleasant thing to look at; now that she knows they aren’t bruises of pleasure, but bruises of pain.  


Kamilah watches as she rubs at the skin self-consciously. “I meant to heal you before you woke. So that you would not have to see what I resorted to.”

“You held me down hard enough to bruise.”

“And the very sight repels me.” Kamilah tries to take her hands but Nadya can’t help it — she pulls back with an impulse she doesn’t really understand, “When I had tried everything I could think of to no avail… I weighed my options. I would rather you know and understand what these nightmares are doing to you than find yourself unable to wake up at all.”

 _Unable to wake up at all._ Hard words for Nadya to swallow. But they’ve got nothing on the pain Kamilah tries to hide with the long curtain of her hair. Something so strong she can’t push it back beneath the mask.

With a deep breath Nadya rests her wrists turned up in Kamilah’s hands. Rests a lot more in them too — and not even just tonight, right here right now. But it’s Nadya who solves everyone else’s problems — not the other way around. Can she be blamed for holding something back? For trying to keep herself from being vulnerable in the face of such invulnerability?

Slender fingers brush softer than a feather over Nadya’s skin.

“I anticipated… an uglier sight than this.” The vampiress admits and her voice is strained. The very thought is eating her alive.

“Well, it’s not. And, hey — did _I_ hurt _you?”_ She roams her eyes over every visible inch of the woman. Just because she can’t see anything, though, doesn’t mean nothing is there.

Kamilah can’t stand the sight any longer — regardless of lack of pain or noble intent. She holds back on answering Nadya’s question to bring a hand to her parted lips. The barest flash of pearly white, then red beading like a swollen jewel in compliment with her skin.

Kamilah takes great care in easing the blood over and into her skin; like a fine oil or lotion — something to make Nadya beautiful.

 _Maybe to a vampire this_ is _beautiful._

The bruising heals rapidly before their eyes; holds Nadya captive in a reel on fast-forward that blooms to purpling blue to mottled red to greenish to yellow then poof. Like it never even happened.

Kamilah strokes the result with a tenderness that should be reserved for fine silks and glittering gold. _Should be,_ Nadya thinks, and yet it’s her that gets that affection; that promise.

_Who needs impassioned declarations of love when they could have this?_

“I know you mean to ask if you somehow managed to injure me physically while you slept. But when I say I _was_ wounded…” she knows Nadya so so well and keeps her from pulling away by lacing their fingers together, _“when I say I was wounded,_ I do so in the hopes that you’ll understand I will no longer accept _mostly-truths.”_

She’s regretting saying that the more Kamilah repeats it. “I understand.”

“Best that you do.”

Nadya pushes herself into the woman’s arms in a tight embrace; buries her face into the coolness of her neck and it jostles Nadya’s glasses askew but she couldn’t care less. If she had looked at Kamilah for one more moment she would have broken down.

All this and they still don’t have any answers. They just have more questions and more symptoms and… and more resolve, maybe. But it’s not something they can solve in one night.

And just because Nadya doesn’t remember anything clear from her nightmares doesn’t mean they don’t linger. Something of a shadow in the corner of her eye when she looks in the mirror.

Maybe its time she forces that shadow into the light.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I still can't believe we're finally here. After a year (celebrating 1 Year of _Oblivion Bound_ on June 29th!), 3 books, a ton of changes and new ideas and new directions I never planned on... we're finally here. _Destiny II_ is by no means the last book but I can't believe we've even gotten this far. I hope you enjoyed, will continue to enjoy, and continue along with everything happening to Nadya and the gang. Comments and critique would be fabulous. Thank you for reading!
> 
> Find out more about _Bound by Destiny_ , the _Oblivion Bound_ series, and Nadya at my writeblr: [jcckwrites](http://jcckwrites.tumblr.com/)


	2. The Secrets

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Now that everything is out in the open, Nadya promises she won’t keep any more secrets from her friends. But when the chance for real answers means hurtful actions, she must deal with the consequences.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **chapter content warnings:** language, alcohol, mentions of hallucination

They rip the band-aid off at Adrian’s office.  


 _Well…_ not so much _they_ as _she,_ as in Kamilah sits with the rest of them and nurses her drink while Nadya is put on the spot. Which she doesn’t think is very fair. Kamilah hadn’t been entirely truthful with them either!

Adrian won’t look either of them in the eyes. On the other hand Lily won’t _stop_ looking at her. Nadya knows that look — they may be platonic soulmates of the roommate variety but things have not always been perfect in the Spencer-Al Jamil household — and the way Lily’s looking at her brings to mind the Great Pineapple Spat of last Easter.

Like she can’t believe the person she’s looking at is indeed _her_ Nadya. Because _her_ Nadya would never keep secrets. Especially ones that (unlike the Great Pineapple Spat of last Easter) toe the only vaguely-defined lines of danger and actual harm. 

But lucky for Lily the chairs on the guest side of Adrian’s desk are large enough for both her and her girlfriend to fit in snugly together. Maricruz pets her cheek and manages to tug Lily’s focus onto her. The relief she watches between them makes Nadya’s chest ache in a lot of ways she doesn’t understand.

And then there’s Jax. Jax who lingers near the bar cart because, as he’s said maybe a dozen times since they came up here, he’s never had scotch this good before.

_Why had they brought him up here again?_

The office is starting to feel a little cramped.

“You told me what happened at the _Musea_ was an isolated event.” Adrian accuses one of them—perhaps both of them—leaning back in his chair clenching his hands together tight like a prayer. Only his knuckles are white and Nadya swears she can hear _something_ crack when he moves his left wrist. 

Kamilah finally comes to her defense. “I recommended that be our story, yes. At least until we could provide answers for the questions that would inevitably follow.”

Lily’s hand shoots up into the air; she doesn’t wait to be called on before snapping about as harsh as Nadya deserves. “Hold the freakin’ stable here. Are you talking about whatever weird mojo happened at Adrian’s trial?”

Which, of course, veers Adrian’s attention to _that._ Great.

“What are you talking about, what happened at the trial?”

Nadya looks to Kamilah for guidance but all she gets is a subtle and almost imperceptible shake of her head. Because that’s helpful.

“Nadya —” Adrian sounds so _torn,_ hand over his mouth and a distance in his eyes, “— exactly how long has this been going on?”

Though she was pretty sure she had gone over all of this with everyone! Or… maybe she planned on it…? Nadya, known to plan so hard and so passionately, had accidentally thought she did something she didn’t… all because it went so well in her head.

Which leaves her groaning with both hands dragging down her face. _Yeah that sounds like me._ Really she only does this to herself. Because now she doesn’t know what she _has_ said and what she hasn’t.

Nadya inhales until she can hear her pulse in her temples.

“The first time it happened was the, uhm, the first night of the Awakening Ball.”

It’s ironic that everyone else (save Kamilah) in the room is choking yet she’s the only one who actually needs to breathe.

“That’s nearly a year Nadya; _a year!”_

“I know. And it killed me — how I behaved, but like Kamilah said…”

Which only brings him down on his fellow vampire sharply. “And you’ve known all this time.”

Kamilah purses her lips. “Yes.”

“Is there anything you’d like to say?”

“My personal thoughts on the matter have already been discussed in private between Nadya and myself.”

“I meant towards me, Kamilah.” And this Kamilah knows despite her impassivity to Adrian’s impassioned declarations. Nadya can see fragments of it in the drumming fingers on her thigh; in the way someone so sure in their own skin ends up switching how she leans, which foot rests on her knee.

Judging by his heavy sigh Adrian isn’t surprised that he doesn’t get an answer. Not that it disappoints him any less.

But would he be anyone other than Adrian Raines if he didn’t try and help?

“Well… I can think of a few preliminary tests we can run. Ideally I’d like to get a map of your brain as normal and one during one of these… _nightmares,_ or visions, or episodes — I think I still have a friend at Johns Hop—”

“That’s _it?”_

The gears don’t even get time to get themselves greased up before Adrian comes to a grinding halt.

Lily looks at him like he, too, has betrayed her. The arm on her side of the chair squeaks under protest of her shaking hand. “You’re just gonna forgive _a year_ of being _lied to_ just like that?”

He goes to answer — he’s Adrian, and Adrian always has an answer — but falls just short this time.

It isn’t so much a glare Lily turns onto Nadya but the hurt is there. The intent to hurt, too. “I would’ve thought since, you know, the _last time_ you kept something from me ended _so well_ that maybe you wouldn’t do it again.

“I guess not.”

She might as well have taken a knife and jabbed it in Nadya’s side. “Lil’…”

“Don’t, Nadya. Right now… I—I don’t think I can deal with excuses right now. I can’t deal with _any of this_ right now.”

One tap and Maricruz is standing; giving Lily a wide berth as the young vampire stands and leaves the office. Nadya can hear each heavy step of her boots out, how they quicken as she goes. She has to turn away but can’t exactly be subtle in wiping away her tears.

_No, not like this. Not again._

Nadya fights back all of the churning anxieties in her stomach telling her to stay put. She has to make this right. And though her feet drag her like bricks she rushes out of the door and after Lily. 

_She can’t lose her best friend again._

The sign above the elevators is still dim — has Nadya veering off into the direction of her bathroom but the handle doesn’t budge.

_“Go away.”_

“Lily, please —”

 _“I said_ go away _what don’t you get about that?”_ Lily’s voice is thick even muffled through the door. Nadya tries the handle again like something would have magically changed. She thinks fleetingly about the key in her desk but what would that say about her, storming into Lily’s space like that?

_Especially when it’s all her fault anyway?_

She grips the metal tightly but it’s just something to hold onto; rests her forehead on the cool metal and really _really_ tries not to break down right there.

_“I can still hear your heartbeat.”_

Nadya swallows thickly. “I’m sorry. I’m… I’m so sorry. I didn’t think of it like that.”

The door opens outward in a rush and Nadya nearly falls on her back end. The only reason she _isn’t_ is because Lily’s hand— _her best friend’s hand_ —holds her securely by the wrist. It doesn’t erase the _hurt_ that shines through her eyes.

“Do you think you can just stand here and _apologize_ and that makes everything okay,” asks Lily; though she doesn’t give a breath for Nadya to answer, “that we’re suddenly all _cool?”_

“Of course not. I just — if you let me explain —”

Lily cuts her off by yanking them both into the bathroom. Not a cramped space by any means and Lily takes advantage of it by stepping back until she’s pinned herself against the tiled back wall with her fingertips splayed out against the fancy patterns. Nadya’s seen it from Lily before; a technique to distribute her newfound strength to try and do the least damage possible.

Lily jerks her chin back towards the others. “I think you had more than plenty of time to talk back there. It’s my turn now.”

Nadya sniffles; nods. When Lily starts talking she does so at Nadya’s reflection in the vanity mirror — _can’t even bear to look at the real me,_ but Nadya forces those thoughts down.

“I would’ve thought you learned from the first time around that we don’t keep secrets from each other, Nadi’. Girl, I know you’re blind as a bat but even you can’t miss that it doesn’t exactly go well for us.”

It makes her push up her glasses out of habit.

With a snort, Lily shakes her head. “Just tell me _why,_ ‘cause that’s what I don’t get. _Why.”_

 _Why, indeed._ “I…” _I wish I had an answer. I wish I could take it back. I wish I could tell you from the start._ But none of those things are what Lily wants from her. So she tries again; “Because I’m really _really_ scared, Lil’.”

“Bull, you told Kamilah. Try again.”

“Kamilah was… it was different with her.”

“Why —” and suddenly Nadya wishes Lily would look back at the mirror because the weight of judgment, accusation in the look she gives is suffocating, “— because you’ve got a _crush_ on her? Because she was there in the Council Chamber? And what was I, a bologna sandwich?”

“No.”

“Best friends don’t keep shit like this from each other. I wouldn’t’ve thought we’d need to go through this _again.”_

 _Kamilah could give me answers — or I’d hoped._ “I didn’t want you to worry — a-about me.”

The deadpan face she gets in reply is totally warranted. Even Nadya can hear how stupid she sounds saying it. Best friends worry about each other — _Nadya and Lily worry about each other._ That’s never been an issue before.

It’s the only thing that kept her going for a really long time.

“Please don’t tell me I’ve gotta explain how stupid you just were.”

“No, no I heard it.”

The laughter is weak — like going after the Final Boss on hard mode with only your starter armor weak — but it’s something. It’s more than they had before.

 _“UGH!”_ Lily _thunks_ the back of her head against the wall — mutters an _“ohshit”_ when she pulls away and sees a little crack spider-webbing from the corner of a tile. But it’s another moment of laughter they both desperately need.

“When did we get like this? Well—no—when did _you_ get like this; shutting me out, deciding what’s best for me…”

“It seemed like the right choice at the time. You already have so much on your plate…”

Lily points an accusatory finger to the door. “Says who; _Kamilah?_ Because I’ll kick her butt — I’ll lose and it’ll probably be the most humiliating loss of my life but I’ll go out there and kick her royal uppity _two thousand year old heinie_ right the hell now.”

They stare at one another in a long silence before bursting into peals of laughter. Stronger than before — _they’re_ stronger than they were before, right? Nadya doesn’t deserve it — doesn’t deserve _Lily_ — not one bit.

“Newsflash, Miss Martyrdom, but friends _care_ about each other,” Lily sighs — and when she comes close to take Nadya’s hand they’re both gonna start crying all over again, “especially best friends. That’s why friendship goes both ways. Because… well friendship going only one way is just stalking — some creepy _Lifetime_ -special level obsessing shit.

“And, sorry-not-sorry, but you’re totally not cute enough for me to end up a made-for-TV movie plot for you. Especially _Lifetime.”_ She practically gags.

Nadya squeezes their hands. “I know. A-About the friendship thing, not the _Lifetime_ thing.”

“Good. Because if _any_ channel is making me into a movie it’s _Showtime.”_

“Because _HBO_ ruined the final season of _The Crown & The Flame?”_ Nadya asks.

With a grin, Lily lightly hits her arm with a surprisingly human strength. And it means the world to her. “Exactly! And who else knows my fury towards their hetero-pandering asses but a best friend?”

“Anyone who’s talked to you for more than five minutes?”

“Bad example. You get my point.”

Lily sighs and uses their hold to bring her into a smothering hug. “I’m still frustrated — but it’ll go away, you know that. Just… _please_ stop trying to spare me things. I mean it. It already cost me one life —” but Nadya can’t recoil in a hug this tight, “— and I’ve come to terms with that. I just don’t want it to cost you yours.”

“I don’t deserve you.” _She doesn’t. She never will._

Lily smiles into her shoulder; and Nadya can feel it.

“No shit, but stating the obvious doesn’t do much, does it?” They only pull apart when they have to because that’s what best friends do. Lily waits while Nadya wipes the smudges from her lenses. Best friends do that, too.

“C’mon, I think we’ve wasted enough time for the main plot to have advanced in the other room.”

“Are you trying to break the fourth wall again?”

“One day — Nadya Al Jamil — one day. And on that day I _will_ make you apologize for all the times you doubted me.”

“If that day ever comes I totally will.”

* * *

Eventually they manage to come to an agreement of sorts.

Which is just a nice way of saying Kamilah and Adrian decided everything for her while Nadya was making up with Lily and _sorry, you don’t have to like it, but this is how it’s gonna be._

Despite everything Nadya and Kamilah have already worked on together, Adrian insists he run his own tests. _“Not because I don’t trust your findings,”_ he had said quickly, _“but running them again might yield different results.”_ Which it totally scientifically valid but also the exact opposite of what Nadya wanted in the first place.

But it becomes apparent pretty early on that what Nadya wants isn’t as important as getting answers. At least until they know this isn’t killing her.

And the only way Nadya can convince her boss not to cut down her hours or days working is if she agrees to be babysat. Well — that word _specifically_ isn’t used but what else is she supposed to call _“someone with you at all times while you sleep?”_ Which is of course Kamilah’s insistence and she knows why but that doesn’t mean she has to like it.

So Maricruz agrees to move in — which gives her and Lily an excuse to duck out to go pack a few bags. No doubt when Nadya arrives back at her apartment that night the fridge will no longer have a vegetable drawer, but a second drawer for blood bags — this time with _‘MARI-BOO’_ in bright blue permanent marker on the label.

Nadya had really hoped never to become _that friend_ that lived with a couple; the eternal third wheel. Yet here she is.

Jax agrees to ask around the Shadow Den for anyone who might be secretly save-the-day-worthy psychic, _“but don’t get your hopes up.”_ Yeah… she sorta stopped hoping for any kind of help on that front after the third time Kamilah tried to enlist Jameson’s help. Unsurprisingly it’s kind of hard to get help from someone when you have no idea where they are.

“Why didn’t you tell me Jameson had gone missing,” asks Adrian with no small amount of surprise, “or brought it up to the Council for that matter?”

“You know as well as I that if the scholar finds a potential addition to his collection he has a tendency to fall off the face of the earth in pursuit of it. We will cross that bridge when he returns.”

Nadya’s final condition (read: order) wouldn’t even be a thing if she had just kept her darn mouth shut though.

“No, I forbid it.”

Nadya looks to Adrian for backup — but he’s a little _too_ focused on the results from last month’s PET scan Kamilah had offered. She’s on her own.

“He’s the one who did this to me, Kamilah.”

“You do not know that for certain.”

“Uh — _hello?_ You were there when he… went into my head.”

“That time, yes. But that _is_ an isolated incident.”

“Is it?” Jax pipes up from his corner. Kamilah snaps him a glare but he doesn’t even flinch. “Because it sounds to me like the guy was either there or at the very least _around_ every time this happened to you before.”

And he’s right, when Nadya gives it a real think. At the Ball, in the Shadow Den, at the trial, in the museum. Every incident up to Vega’s attack the Trinity had been lurking in the shadows — just out of sight and sense.

She’s just too desperate to believe in coincidences anymore.

Kamilah grinds her teeth audibly. “I would have thought you had learned your lesson, Matsuo, after _your_ encounter with them.”

He grins. “If I backed off every time someone tried to choke me I would be a monk.”

“Kamilah —” Nadya reaches out for the woman’s hand and finds comfort in the slight curl of their fingers together, “— I get it. I still have nightmares about what Isseya did to me in Marcel’s garden. But you didn’t hear her; she told me to _enjoy my gift._ That’s basically a confession, right?”

She takes a little satisfaction in the moments of hesitation that gets her. Too bad it’s not enough.

“Nadya, listen well. I forbid you to to pursue this. Heaven forbid you realize why because it would only be as consequence. I have known the Trinity for as long as I have walked this earth as a vampire and they are _dangerous._ Perhaps more so now than ever.

“If we find reasonable proof that it was indeed Valdas who triggered these visions in you from the beginning then we’ll pursue it. But believe me when I say that it is out of concern for you that I put my foot down. Nothing good comes of them. Inviting them to darken our doorway yet again will bring more pain than it will provide answers.”

It’s a last-ditch effort to hope Adrian will take her side but Nadya tries it anyway. Her heart sinks when she sees the resignation on his face. “Kamilah’s right,” — _traitor_ — “it’s for the best.”

But when she makes Nadya promise not to try and find Valdas and Isseya, Kamilah makes the smallest mistake.

“Promise me.” Her fingertip finds Nadya’s pulse with ease; she makes Nadya look her in the eye while she says it.

“I promise I won’t go looking for them.”

 _“Nadya._ This is not the time to find loopholes.” Is that Kamilah threatening her with a binding contract? That’s what it sounds like.

Kamilah would do it, too.

“Fine, _fine_ — I promise I won’t go looking for, try to contact, or hunt down the Trinity. Better?”

Everything on the vampiress’ face says otherwise — still she nods.

Emotional turmoil, confessions, and apologies aside? It’s still pretty early on in the night. Kamilah has a conference call with Beijing and leaves shortly after — Nadya walks her out to the elevator and steals a quick kiss before the doors close.

She peeks her head back in to the office just as Jax finishes shouldering on his jacket. “Why don’t I walk you down to the front desk?”

The look he gives her, like _that’s out of the blue,_ is totally warranted. “I don’t know how old you think I am but I know how to use an elevator.”

Adrian looks up from his computer with fingers still flying over the keyboard. “Actually she probably should,” he agrees, “you weren’t admitted into the building as a regular visitor — since all of those are filed in the system. If security stops you it could be an issue.”

Jax looks between them and definitely wants to argue — lucky for her he accepts his cause is a lost one. “Fine,” and mutters under his breath, _“corporate sellouts…”_ which Adrian totally hears — but he plays the bigger person and ignores it.

“Hey, Adrian?”

“Yes Nadya?”

He doesn’t hesitate as long as he is within rights to when he looks to her in the doorway. She knows all is _not_ forgiven, not yet — and what she’s about to do probably isn’t gonna help much with that. But it’s a little easier for Nadya to smile.

“Coffees from the cart, my treat?”

Finally he smiles back. “Sounds great. Thank you.”

Behind her the elevator _dings_ with the sound of closing doors and Nadya sprints to wedge her heel in the gap. She glares at Jax; who just stands there with his arms crossed. Not trying to help at all.

“Nu-uh, you’re not getting away from me that easily,” she hisses — and throws one last wave to Adrian’s open door before they begin to descend.

Jax looks down at her, eyebrow quirked. “And that means _what,_ exactly?”

“It means I need your help.”

“Not grabbing coffee I hope.”

“No, not grabbing coffee.”

When they arrive in the atrium Nadya grabs Jax by the jacket, shushing his immediate protest, and pulls him through the nearest open door. It takes her human eyes a second to adjust to the darkness but since the building is usually skeleton crew at this hour she doesn’t want to risk drawing attention by turning on the lights.

The way Jax looks at her — he can’t decide whether to be impressed or disturbed. The last time they were alone was, god, how long ago? When she was watching him train in the tunnels? Or was it when Lily and Maricruz had abandoned them in the middle of drinks to go be adorable and play with the bar’s foosball table back around Labor Day?

_It had been a while, point made._

She holds a finger to the vampire’s lips before he can speak. “I need your help.”

“You already have it. Shadow Den, psychic, remember?”

Nadya rolls her eyes. “Forget about that. I need you to do something else for me.”

“Why all the cloak and dagger?”

“Because Kamilah and Adrian can’t know what I’m asking you to do. They’ll stop you.”

It’s pretty easy then for Jax to put two and two together. It’s probably the lack of light playing tricks on her eyes but he might actually look impressed. “You want me to find those Triad freaks.” When Nadya nods, though, he scoffs. “Do you really think you should go around breaking promises so soon? Or are you planning another apology tour?”

“I promised that _I_ wouldn’t try and find _them.”_

“That’s semantics bull and you kno—”

“That’s why _they_ are gonna find _me._ No promises made there.”

Nadya’s pretty sure her heart is missing a few dozen beats. She knows she’s risking a lot here — Jax could just as easily agree to help her as he could march back up to Adrian’s office and tell him about her dumb idea.

Because it _is_ a dumb idea. A royally dumb idea; the King Dumb Idea of Really Bad Choices-land. But that’s not stopping her.

One more second of silence and Nadya totally would have gotten on her knees and pleaded. Thankfully Jax sighs before she loses most of her dignity. “I hope you have an idea on how to find these guys then. Because I can’t just pull them out of my back end.”

“Actually, I do. But before anything I need your word you won’t rat me out.” She doesn’t have to say to who.

No matter what it is; the enjoyment of spiting his former enemies, his reasonably large desire to help people, heck — even just boredom will do it for her — anything that will get him to help.

“Okay. You have my word — to a point,” he doesn’t let her interrupt, “because if I do this and it gets you hurt or worse it’s _my head_ they’ll be coming for first. So if this pans out, whatever you do, you don’t do it alone.”

Well — that leaves Nadya pretty speechless. “I… thank you, Jax. Having someone at my back would… it would be really helpful.”

“Yeah yeah, just give me something to work with.”

She pulls a small square of sticky notes from her skirt pocket and scribbles it down for him. He’s a vampire, duh, so he doesn’t have as much trouble reading over her shoulder.

 _“‘Montes?’_ What’s that?”

“A lead, I hope. There was this painting of them with that name on it. I think the date was 1870-something. Their clothes looked English, but I remember Marcel saying he sent their invitations to somewhere like Cordonia? It’s more than nothing but it’s all I’ve got.”

Jax shoves the paper in his pocket. “I’ll see what I can do. But there’s no promises here.”

“I know. I still appreciate it.”

“If we get caught this was your idea.”

“Completely.”

He hesitates and for a second Nadya doubts he believes her that she’s ready to accept the blame. But she is. Just like she’ll prove Valdas is the one to blame for the horrors she’s dealing with every night.

Jax does the gentlemanly thing and opens the door for her to lead the way.

She shows him out all the way to the front doors. The front desk guard barely glances up at her familiar face before she’s nose-deep back in her novel. Nadya offers one last “thank you” that isn’t enough to warrant a reply; he leaves her watching his back as he retreats into the bustling New York night.

With nothing left to do but wait, Nadya heads to grab her and Adrian their coffees.

* * *

It takes a week. Frankly, she’s surprised it didn’t take longer.

Nadya doesn’t immediately recognize the number when the message comes in but who else would be texting her random addresses?

A quick search brings her to a small bakery-slash-cafe on the nicer end of town. Good reviews and more than a few well-known authors and playwrights were on their claim to softcore-fame.

But Jax isn’t subtly asking her out for croissants and cappuccinos.

_This pretty much definitely absolutely means it has to be a trap, right? Right._

Lucky for them both Jax has the tact to show up at her apartment rather than at the office; fewer questions that way. Well… sort of.

Nadya should have known something was wrong when her ears weren’t assaulted by loud (and likely gory) digital death the second she opens the door. In her defense though there was a client dinner at an upscale Chinese place and she actually managed to understand more than half of the conversation.

It’s hard for her to decide which of the things she sees is the weirdest. Is it Maricruz actually folding the laundry (for once)? Is it Jax using the stone from Nadya’s utensil drawer to sharpen his katana? Or is it Lily with her handheld console left forgotten on the coffee table?

“Everything about this makes my head hurt.”

Lily snorts, and not in an amused way. “Yeah, tell me about it.”

Nadya throws Jax a questioning glance. He shrugs like this is just something that happens every other day and sometimes on the weekends.

“You said Raines and Sayeed couldn’t find out.” _Not what she’d meant, but…_ But Lily is silent — and _that_ officially becomes the weirdest thing in the room.

She’s giving Nadya a chance she really doesn’t deserve. Worse; all four of them know it and the tension is enough to make her skin crawl.

Nadya toes off her heels with heavy shoulders and a heavier heart. “Let me change, and then we can…”

“We can _what,_ Nadi’, what can we do?” snaps Lily; totally justified.

“And then we — meaning Jax and I — can explain what’s going on.”

It would help if she knew what was going on first — but they’re just all in it now. Jax had to have planned this — and it’s a sleight Nadya won’t be forgetting any time soon. Although maybe it’s for the best. Hadn’t she promised Lily there would be no more secrets?

At least Lily doesn’t move away like she’s a walking plague when she settles down in comfier clothes.

“So it worked?”

Jax doesn’t answer right away. Inspecting the newly sharpened business-end of his blade is more important apparently. Nadya would have to disagree.

“Yeah, it worked. But you’re not gonna like what I found out.” 

He swings a leg around to sit backwards in the chair; old resale-store wood that creaks in protest but manages to hold. _“And_ I don’t know how long we’re going to be able to keep this from the Council.”

Nadya blanches. “Whoa whoa — wait. You mean just Adrian and Kamilah, right?”

“No.”

Mention of the Council always upsets Maricruz in one way or another; from a simple curled upper lip to a full on muttered-under-her-breath insult fest. Even with Jax finally not-actively grating against his role in it. “I say we do it for as long as possible — whatever _it_ is.”

“Yeah, that’s not happening. Because the second one of them hears even so much as a _whisper_ about the fact that those elder vampire psychos have been living under all our noses for nearly a year now it won’t be pretty.”

Nadya inhales so quickly that it hurts — and the stuttering of her heart draws the attention of all three vampires unwittingly. On impulse she reaches out for something—anything—and could _sob_ when Lily’s hand finds hers for comfort.

“Valdas and Isseya — they’ve been here this whole time?”

Jax nods grim; solemn. “I’m starting to think that theory you told Sayeed has a bit of merit.”

Lily squeezes her hand. “You had Jax try and track down Mr. and Mrs. Vampire Smith? Why?”

“Because I know they have something to do with what’s happening to me.”

“And Adrian, Kamilah; they don’t know?”

Nadya shakes her head. “Kamilah made me promise not to seek them out.”

“But you did.”

 _“No,”_ Nadya’s straws may be very thin but she grasps onto them tight and doesn’t let go, “Jax did.”

Funny thing about the over-the-glasses deadpan thing; it kind of doesn’t work when both people involved are wearing glasses. Not that it stops Lily from trying. “You’re splitting hairs and you know it. Were you gonna keep this from me, too?”

Now it’s Nadya’s turn to squeeze. “No. No I… I asked Jax not to tell them but I don’t think I can… no, I don’t _want_ to do this on my own.”

 _They’re too dangerous; too unpredictable._ And even Nadya’s reckless not-martyrdom knows it.

If Lily doesn’t believe her, she keeps it to herself.

“So how… I mean how did you…?” Thank god Jax gets what she’s trying to say.

“You were right about the name; _Montes._ ‘Course there are a couple thousand people in Manhattan alone with a last name like that but the pool gets pretty small when you narrow down the criteria.”

“Wait —” Lily looks between him and Nadya with widening eyes, _“you_ were the one who gave him that name? I thought it was another mark.”

Nadya glares Jax’s way. “You had _Lily_ look them up?” But he shrugs shameless.

“She’s the best hacker I know.”

Looks like there was no way around getting Lily involved. Though Nadya can’t help but wonder if that’s on purpose.

And from the looks of it she agrees. “Yeah — at first it was all real sporadic stuff; an odd purchase here and there, donations or whatever, but I figured it was gonna lead to a job when I found a common denominator. Or, well, lack of.

“They were shelling out a _ton_ of money; the kind of cash nobody really _has_ in their wallet but in stuff instead, you know? But none of it, and I mean literally _not a penny,_ went within a ten foot pole of the Council’s businesses. Raines Corp., Ahmanet Financial, Castellanos Meats, Lacroix Designs, or any of the dozen-something shady cookie jars the Baron has his hands in. It was some hardcore _degrees of Kevin Bacon_ stuff.”

It makes sense. If the Council knew they were still in town they would be forced to heel. She remembers pretty darn well they do _not_ like to heel.

“So how does this —” she pulls her phone out and brings up the address, “— connect the dots?”

Lily’s shrug says _my involvement ended here._ Secretly Nadya’s grateful for that.

“It’s where he wants to meet.”

Jax digs in his jacket pocket for his burner cell; taps a few of the backlit keys and holds up the device so the voicemail can be heard by all.

The voice is tinny; distorted with crappy quality and cheap speakers, but that accent is unmistakable.

_“Hello again, Mister Matsuo. I trust this message finds you in good health. Please extend the sentiment to our friend Miss Al Jamil, would you? I assume it was she who tasked you with finding us — hopefully we didn’t make it too much of a task.”_

Nadya doesn’t realize how badly she’s shaking until two hands press down firm on her shoulders. Maricruz sits down on her other side and continues to hold her like she’s in danger of floating away. _Who knows, she might be._

She’s heard Valdas’ voice like this — every single scene of him flashing behind her closed eyelids in awful memories; from his cool temperament at the Awakening Ball to the silent storm of rage in his eyes as Adam Vega’s head was severed from his neck.

But now—somehow—Nadya is certain she’s heard it before. A thousand different times and in a thousand different ways for thousands of years she’s seen, lived; but never survived. His voice; the last thing heard by the immeasurable dead.

_“I would also assume this comes in regards to the little parting gift I left with Nadya when last we met. And in truth your timing could not be better. I’d very much like to discuss it with her, too, as some recent developments have come to light and my beloved and I find ourselves in need of a help only she can provide._

_“If this is agreeable to her, I would be grateful for you to pass along the location you received moments before this call. The neighborhood is a busy one even after sunset so she need not worry. Please let her know she is welcome to bring whomever she would like to join us — I would rather enjoy the chance to catch up with Kamilah Sayeed._

_“Now she may have reservations about my proposal; I’m sure. So this is my offer, and I will address it to her. Nadya,”_ her eyes sting from unshed tears, the room blurry at the edges even with her glasses and Nadya can’t blink — won’t blink — because every time she does she just sees him looking at her through the black behind her eyelids, _“for the seven nights following this message you’ll find me at the aforementioned address. If you do not come then I will assume you wish no further contact with Isseya and myself. In which case we will return overseas._

_“But I must warn you; if that is the choice you wish to make any and all information I may have will be coming with. And no matter how long you look or how many connections you have — you will not find us. That is a promise. I hope you make the right decision._

_“Have a good night, Nadya. And thank you, Matsuo, for your services. My deepest gratitude. Good bye.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanted to post two chapters yesterday, but since posting the first one had already been delayed so much I decided to just wait until the day after. Think of it as being like a new book having 2 premiere chapters deal? Thank you so much for the views and kudos already and I hope this gets everyone excited for what’s to come! As always, comments and critique would be fabulous. Thank you for reading!


	3. The Truth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As it turns out the Trinity is still in New York. A desperate Nadya agrees to meet Valdas and his promise of answers, but is she ready for the truth behind her visions?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **chapter content warnings:** language, hallucinations, dissociation, kidnapping

Nadya, Lily, and Jax agree to wait until the seventh and final night of Valdas’ offer.  


So, naturally, Nadya goes the night before on her own.

The vampire watches her with an uncomfortable curiosity. It doesn’t carry the usual weight of immortality she associates with him. A year ago he moved like every limb was dragging Atlas’ burden by iron chains but now he’s… well he’s just different.

“You know, I was convinced you would wait until the last day to come.”

Nadya shifts uncomfortably in her chair. “I can go if you want,” _though she really can’t and hopes he doesn’t take her up on it,_ “and come back tomorrow.”

“No no, that isn’t what I meant at all. I’m merely surprised. Help remind me to ask for cash back when we’re finished here, would you? I owe Isseya a few hundred for the bet.”

There’s something just… so wrong about a man over two thousand years old talking about _‘cash back.’_ Maybe that’s why Kamilah always insists on paying where Nadya can’t see.

But the mention of his partner makes Nadya uneasy. They’ve always been joined at the hip. “She won’t be joining us?”

Valdas shakes his head. “No, not tonight at least. I thought it best we keep this an intimate affair.”

“Ew.”

He gives her a chastising look but says nothing more on it.

Nadya doesn’t know what she was expecting; what she would have done if she _had_ waited for her friends to come along as backup, or if she’d sucked it up and told Adrian and Kamilah about going behind their backs in the worst way. It’s not hard to imagine their looks of disappointment.

Even not knowing what to expect, though, didn’t mean Nadya had prepared herself for a place that’s actually kind of cute. An inside that smells like fresh coffee grinds and vanilla and a surprisingly decent bit of sidewalk real estate gated off with a wooden fence painted glossy black.

Not that any of that eases her worry. She’s prepared herself for the worst — tenses up at every passerby, catches herself halfway reaching for the stake in her purse when the vampire across so much as shifts in his seat.

Only Valdas is the epitome of a gentleman. He plays the part he’s dressed for almost _too_ well. Still, Nadya reminds herself not to be fooled, not even for a second. She’s seen what he can become; what he can do. Sometimes she still tastes Vega’s ashes tickling at the back of her throat.

He glances up at the strings of yellowed lights crossed aimlessly over their heads. “It’s a rather charming place, wouldn’t you say? And, I hope, agreeable to your anxieties. Though I wish you would have let me take you somewhere —”

“Somewhere _what,”_ interrupts Nadya; words bursting with accusation, “somewhere secluded and private, or with leather and torture devices?”

Valdas raises a single dark eyebrow in an _‘are you quite finished?’_ way and no, she’s not — not by a long shot. But she’s willing to admit (silently, to herself, not out loud whatsoever) she might be making it worse for herself at this point.

Especially when he answers.

“Somewhere proper; with enough courses to get us through what I’m sure will be a difficult if enlightening conversation for you and I to have, Nadya.”

_Yeah, especially then._

“Oh. No — this is fine.”

Someone clears their throat behind her; makes Nadya almost jump out of her seat in a heart attack. The barista does his level best not to laugh at her while he adjusts his tray bearing a steaming mug on a saucer and a plate of tiny finger sandwiches. “Oh, we didn’t —”

“Here will be fine,” Valdas pushes his folded newspaper aside, “thank you.”

He’s young; one of those obviously-New York types with several studs in his ears and a streak of blue in his blond hair, and likely a long-time server judging by the way his face goes red at Valdas’ simple act of common decency. _Run,_ she wants to shout because she’s seen that darkly alluring smile before and nothing good can come of it, _run while you still can._

Instead Nadya mouths a voiceless thanks. They are left alone.

“I didn’t order anything.”

“I took it upon myself.”

“But you didn’t know which night I would show up.”

“Indeed. After the third night they knew my order by heart.” He glances appraisingly towards the inside cafe — Nadya on the other hand can’t focus on anything but their reflections in the glass. “It’s hard to find attention to detail like that these days outside of hired help.”

With pursed lips Nadya pushes the latte away. “You really shouldn’t have. I can’t —”

“It’s soy milk, if that’s what you’re worried about.” _Uhm, what?_ Yeah — only one of them finds her surprise funny and hint; it’s not Nadya. 

“At the Awakening Ball, shortly after our first introductions. You were rather loudly threatening Raines and Sayeed with what I believe was a platter of artisan cheeses?”

“That’s… very diligent of you.” _Creepy. It’s creepy. It’s so so freakin’ creepy._

Valdas gives a soft snort of amusement. “I’m old, Nadya, but not antiquated. In fact I’ve been looking for someone to discuss the latest season of _The Crown & the Flame_ with, should you have time after our business is concluded.”

“That’s not —” This is so getting out of hand; more than that its wasting time.

She can’t let this chance slip through her fingers. “What are you trying to do? I didn’t come here to have small talk or drink coffee or talk TV, and I’m pretty dang sure that’s not why you invited me but if it is then tell me now because I don’t have time for it.”

“Very well,” he says just a little too flippantly for her growing irritation, “I thought you might be more comfortable this way. I apologize.”

“Apology only accepted if you start talking.”

The vampire leans forward a little too quickly for Nadya’s liking. All that arrogance, immortality; suddenly so plain on his expression he might as well have _‘VAMPIRE’_ painted on his forehead.

It takes everything in her not to move away.

 _So many questions and now she can finally get her answers._ But it leaves Nadya a bit stalled on where to start. But Valdas stays eerily patient.

 _Okay, big questions._ “Am I dying?”

“You’re mortal, you are dying from the moment you’re birthed.” Which is _not_ the answer Nadya’s looking for and he knows it. “But no, not more than any other.”

“Do you plan on killing me?”

“No; you are far too valuable for that.”

“What does _that_ mean?”

Valdas carefully chooses every word to answer; “It means… that we are very happy you are alive, Nadya.” And his not-answers feel a little too close on the family tree to Nadya’s mostly-truths.

Though if he thinks she missed that _“we”_ thing he’s very much mistaken.

“So my nightmares, what exactly are they?”

He’s too casual — plucking one of the sandwiches on the tray and nibbling it idly. Nadya entertains the image of her throwing it in his face… it’s a nice one.

“Nightmares, you say? So the visions only come to you when you sleep?”

_“Visions?”_

“Visions, mental images, nightmares — name them what you will but they are the same thing. Events you never witnessed, lives you never lived…”

_“People I’ve never killed?”_

The words come out of her so scared, so broken; and Nadya’s almost _angry_ for it. A sound so pitiful that even Valdas — the same man who threatened Jax so easily, hurt Adrian and Kamilah so easily, killed Vega so easily — lets sympathy slip through the seams of him.

“And those, yes. They are all a part of you; they have been all your life even if you were once unaware, and they will remain that way from this day to your last day.”

Nadya shakes her head so hard it hurts. “No. No way I — I can’t feel like this forever. I won’t survive it. I… I won’t. I feel less and less like _me_ every time I wake up. There won’t be enough of me left.” _I worry there isn’t enough already._

And he really sits there without an answer for her? Two thousand years and this is all he’s good for; making her feel like her life is already over? What good is it to live for so _freakin’_ long if it can’t help her; _save her?_

“What did you do to me,” it feels good to ask; really good — better than she’s felt in a while, “why did you do it? How do I stop it, or make it hurt less, or make it happen less, or —”

“Forgive me —” — _she doesn’t_ — “— but… you believe _I_ am somehow responsible for these visions? When I just told you they were yours from your first breath.”

“Well what else am I supposed to think?” Nadya snaps. “My head almost explodes, you do some weird psychic mojo that makes it better but also makes it worse, and the last thing your bonkers girlfriend—who conveniently isn’t here—says to me is _“enjoy my gift?”_ I gotta say — that all seems pretty _freakin’_ responsible to me!”

The last time she raised her voice at Valdas, Nadya had Kamilah and Adrian combined to back her up. Yet here she is, no immortality at her back, and honestly she doesn’t even care.

“I am _scared,_ okay? So, so scared — scared enough that I’m doing stupid things that I _know_ I shouldn’t be doing, lying to the people I love, going behind their backs and putting myself in danger and you know why?”

“Because fear is an irrational motivator.”

“Shut up. It’s because I would do all of that again and again _and again_ if it helps me find a way to make this stop. If it takes away all of these horrible feelings that aren’t even my own and… and stops tearing me up inside.”

 _Who are you,_ Nadya asks herself, because they may be her words in her voice but they’re so wrong — so _not Nadya._ And that just adds onto her already existing fear.

_It’s not fair._

_None of this is fair._

Valdas waits until Nadya catches her breath; until he can hear the slowing down of her heart. “Are you quite done?”

“I dunno,” her face is still flushed, “but… sorry.”

“Whatever for?”

“For telling you to shut up.” Because she’s pretty dang certain if anyone else had tried that they wouldn’t have gotten to finish saying their piece.

But she did. Valdas let her get it out until she was pink in the face and more than a little hot under her coat collar despite the bitter night breeze. _Why?_

“No one should ever feel the need to apologize for their grief.”

Nadya glances up from her white-knuckled hands; but Valdas isn’t there — not mentally, anyway. His focus is far off and distant… millennia away. “Grief is a complex thing felt in complex ways. It kills us inside… but the pain of it is proof we are alive, too.”

“I’m not grieving though. I can’t grieve. I have to hope there’s a way to fix it.”

“If my efforts to ebb the storm still leave you this way Nadya, I must admit I’m doubtful of it.”

How is it something so bleak leaves her so breathless?

“What do you mean,” she chokes out, “what—what _efforts?”_

“The ones you would so quickly write off as malice. Though I suppose I’ll give you one thing — my beloved Iss’ has a knack for making most things sound malicious.”

“That’s an understatement…” and apparently the only bad thing he’ll ever say about her, “so—so wait. I don’t… I don’t understand.”

Valdas does the decent thing and turns his face away, but that doesn’t mean Nadya misses the _color me surprised_ raised brow.

“Psychic prominence can be innate, yes, but when you reach a certain age most talents are easily learned. I had hoped the web I was allowed to spin in your mind that night at the _Musea Sanguis_ would hold long enough to bring us to this point naturally. Sadly this was not the case.”

He offers his hand out palm-up between them. He could just as easily take what he wants from her but no, he’s offering.

And the more she thinks about it the more Nadya realizes Valdas had done the same that night. “I thought… when I touched this—this column I could’ve sworn I… that something to do with you had…”

Valdas nods with growing understanding.

“Well that’s to be expected. When psychic abilities grate up against one another it’s a bit like grit-paper on stone; the outer layer of the stone crumbles into a fine powder, yes? The influence that was being pressed unto you turned you into the grit — the rest of the world; your stone.”

“So it’s all in… in _touch?”_ Nadya looks down at her hands as she asks.

“No, but given the borders of your capabilities…” The curl of his fingers draws them both down to watch. “Physical contact is a tether in any instance. But objects have memories just like people do, Nadya. And we vampires are an odd in-between of the two.

“I could show you — if you wish.”

Their fingertips couldn’t be more than four—five inches apart. But to Nadya it looks like miles; like ages stretching out across the tabletop.

 _Two thousand years of history, of life; of love._ And the very idea of _inducing_ this terror upon herself has Nadya actually questioning her sanity — and rightly so. But there’s a power in it, too; in controlling it, not letting it control her.

The last of her reservations are dashed when her mind unhelpfully supplies the memory of Kamilah in the penthouse kitchen — hands hesitant to hold her, to hurt her; fear hidden in the familiar dark of her eyes, fear both of and for Nadya. Because she’s not torturing herself enough already, apparently.

“You don’t have to. The choice is yours.” _Really though — is it?_

 _No._ “No, it’s not.”

Nadya sucks in a deep breath and dives in headfirst by giving Valdas her hand.

_In his dreams they do this bathed in sunlight. But dreams are for the young and the innocent. He is the Made-God Valdemaras and he is neither._

_The rapier catches in the grooves of his vest and bends dangerously close to snapping. Behind him, Isseya laughs giddy and without care._

_“You know, you really should be cheering on your Maker, darling girl.”_

_Valdas rounds on her but she meets him petulantly prideful. “Should I? Lucky for me that I am free to champion whomever I wish.”_

_“Fair enough. I would champion him too, if I could.”_

_They both look to watch him pull the ribbon from his hair; it falls damp around his shoulders — little golden wisps clinging to the sweat on his forehead. The exhaustion of his efforts flashes bright in the deep red of his eyes but his smile is as unwavering as his beauty._

_“I’m flattered, truly,” Cynbel croons to the pair of them, “but that would leave me with no one worthy of a good spar and you know how_ troublesome _my spells of boredom can be.”_

_Likely that he thinks the wink he gives their girl is a charming one. But taken with him as they are their love does not blind them — not anymore._

_“Indeed.” Valdas clicks his tongue and begins to undo the clasps of his suit. “But that is enough sparring for tonight, I think.”_

_“And what of my prize?”_

_Before he can say another word strong arms embrace him close; hold him in the rough-hewn fingertips that claim Valdas’ body as easily as they cradle it. When he looks up it’s to the familiar sight of adoring eyes; of endless devotion._

_As if the kiss Cynbel steals from him doesn’t say as such enough on its own._

_“Satisfactory?” Valdas asks his Golden Son — though he already knows the answer._

_“Rather I would call it_ divine.”

_He decides he will commit this, right here, to the parts of his memory that will never wane with the ages._

_At the very least he is owed that. They all are._

Nadya and Valdas realize it at the same time. The trembling of their joined hands isn’t Nadya’s fault at all, but rather the rarest and greatest slip of the vampire’s composure.

But he doesn’t let her go. _He can’t,_ she accepts solemnly, _because this wasn’t about showing me anything. It was about seeing._

It was about _him._

So Nadya spares him the indignity and brings her hand back to rest in her lap. Valdas startles as if from a deep sleep; runs his hands over his face and Nadya can’t help but hurt for him as she watches that careful mask slide back into place.

“Forgive me,” he clears his throat abruptly, “I wasn’t expecting you to be this, _ahem,_ advanced — for you to be able to project the, _erm —”_

_“‘No one should ever feel the need to apologize for their grief.’”_

The vampire focuses on her sharply — the look he gives her makes her feel complex and worth studying. Or maybe she’s just feeling him still; feeling the things that break his heart with every passing day. When he realizes then that she’s sincere — that Nadya repeats his earlier sentiments because she believes they will heal him somehow — he visibly eases.

“You are wiser than your years, you know.”

“Lately they aren’t exactly _my_ years though, are they?”

In her lap Nadya digs around in her purse and pulls out a small journal. Even just the sight of it makes her queasy but she has no one to blame but herself. When she tries to toss it down between them Nadya finds her grip only tightening — her fear of its discovery so innate she has a hard time letting it go even willingly.

Valdas sees this and reaches out; strangely careful to avoid touching Nadya directly as he pries it free. “What is this?”

“A journal.”

“Yes, I can see that.” He begins flipping through the book; eyes roaming over Nadya’s neat scrawl. Page after page of it; filled from top to bottom in various colored pens and then some. Tabbed notes and scribbled margins — but the closer he gets to the end the more chaotic the entries become.

Careful recall hours later turned into hasty ramblings in the throes of panic. The ravings of a mad woman.

“I don’t always remember,” explains Nadya, “but I write down what I can.”

“What you can remember?”

“What I can stomach.”

If anyone understands it would be him. He’s practically dripping in blood; it oozes from his pores just like his infallible persona. And Nadya hates that she knows this with certainty.

Valdas stops on a page near the end; leans forward intensely as he tries to decipher her cursive’s best impression of wet noodles. Do you know how hard it is to write with gel pens, hands shaking and slippery from sweaty palms, in a blacked out room when you can’t tell the difference between the pages and the bodies piling up before your eyes?

Pretty freakin’ hard.

The way he reads it though — like some riveting tale to stand the test of time. In a way it does, maybe. “I was here for this,” and he sounds a little too amused for her liking; nothing in that awful book is amusing, “we all were, even dear Kamilah. From the tone with which you write I would say this is the _petit Lafayette’s_ account of the siege of his township.

“You write with great passion; ever considered a career in fiction?” He pushes the journal back her way with a single finger. Nadya practically snatches it up to be buried back in her bag. Underneath the work notepad and pens, her glasses case and the stake she is never without.

Only when her secrets are six feet under does Nadya relax.

“I wouldn’t dream of exposing the world to those terrible things.”

“The world has already _been_ exposed to them.”

“Well I shouldn’t have been, but I didn’t really get the chance to choose did I?” Nadya stares at him hard. Valdas has the good sense not to justify a reply.

Already the city is well into bed with the night around them. The cafe window bathes the pair and the sidewalk in soft yellowing light but directly across the street neon pinks and blues flicker out of the corner of her sight.

 _How long have they been here,_ she wonders, but can’t muster up the courage to look at her phone. They have to know by now; they _have to._ Lily’s probably already GPSed her and they’re all on their way, crammed into Jax’s fake plumbing van, ready to jump out and hog tie Valdas while shoving a dirty rag into his mouth… _actually maybe he’s on to something with this ‘fiction writer’ idea._

 _“Why_ didn’t I get to choose, Valdas?” Because he’s old — he’s _so old_ which means he has to know. He _has to._ That’s why she’s here. That’s why she’s risking everything to be here.

“Rarely are we given the opportunity to choose our own destiny.”

“But it’s possible, right?”

He gives a reluctant nod. “Yes… for others. But not for you, Nadya. I would have thought this, here—tonight—had given you clarity of that.”

 _Clarity? More like the exact opposite._ Nadya feels deeper in the fog than ever and that’s just fact. But is it so wrong for her to hold out even a crumb of hope?

Valdas sees this — her resistance — and maybe he even admires her for it. The man lifts his hand and Nadya readies herself to flinch away— _don’t touch me pleasedon’ttouchme I don’t want to see any more please_ —but he hovers it just shy of her skin. So close he can feel the heat of her cheek against his palm.

“It’s unfortunate what little control you _did_ have was taken from you so soon.”

“I don’t understand.”

His brow furrows. “I said as such, remember? You were always meant to walk this path but Jameson’s influence sped the world up beneath your feet; sent you along farther than you were meant to be.”

_Shut the front door._

Nadya recoils so hard her chair legs scrape against the concrete loud and jarring. Suddenly all the little beautiful things around them — the lights, the baristas winding down inside, even the people just passing by beyond the gate — seem dull; lifeless.

“Ja— _Jameson?_ What are you talking about?”

He had even agreed with her: it made sense to think Valdas was the one doing all the pulling of the strings. But okay — so it isn’t him. _Jameson, though?_ “Jameson. _Jameson,_ Jameson. Like the weird little librarian guy; the one from Adrian’s trial. _That. Jameson.”_

“Yes…” answers Valdas, and Nadya _really_ isn’t a fan of how hesitant he says it, “He’s the only prominent psychic in the country. Moreso than myself, even.”

 _Holy… crap._ Totally not a conclusion she would have even put under the _‘Extremely Unlikely Possibilities’_ category — like at all. But the wild thing is the more the idea has time to marinate the more Nadya’s starting to get it. The more she’s starting to believe him because somehow it makes… sense?

“No,” _no, remember who this is, remember how he lied so easily and condemned Adrian to death,_ “no no, that’s not… he’s a member of Kamilah’s clan!”

Which apparently is news. “Is he really? That’s surprisingly deceptive of him.”

_Surprisingly deceptive. Ha!_

This is too much to process. Nadya’s still reeling — she’s still _him_ in a way, still feeling the pressure of his eternal life crushing her own heart in a stone grip. It doesn’t make sense and it also makes total sense; she just isn’t certain which one of them is real.

That doubt screams at her through the pain still growing. _How dare you trust him,_ it growls; a monster hiding under the bed, _after what he did to Adrian, after what_ they _did to Adrian, to Kamilah, to you! Are you really so desperate and so far gone?_

Of course she remembers his lies. So easy and flawless and done on the thinnest whim because of _what_ — a rumor; a ghost hidden behind another man’s face? The pain he’d caused them all…

“You can’t expect me to trust you.”

“Perhaps not _‘expect’_ so much as hope I’ve proven enough to you tonight that such trust comes willingly.”

“Do you really think it’s that easy?” She bites the words off her tongue in chunks of anger; frustration. “Or is it that you think I’m still just some dumb human who will believe the scary old vampire without even a question otherwise.”

“Quite the opposite. I think you resilient, resourceful, and yet reticent to act on impulse — when you’re of sound mind that is.”

“So you’re calling me nuts.”

“I’m saying the fault isn’t yours. And if you’re still hesitant to believe me then there’s a very simple way to prove the truth.”

The second time Nadya holds his hand is much less reluctant. Maybe part of her wants to get it over with. Maybe whatever’s left hopes she’ll find something wrong in him; his intentions. Like a validation.

She squeezes so hard it hurts her palm but what is feeble mortal strength compared to, well, _him?_ And… 

_“Nothing?”_

He keeps them connected — really just completely dedicated to this whole _proving himself trustworthy_ thing, apparently. “Don’t sound so disappointed.”

But really; there’s nothing. Not the low-key anticipatory bombardment of visions and the feelings that come with them. Not voices or sensations that aren’t her own. And not even some weird warm glow of altruism either.

It’s comforting as much as it is worrisome but in the absence Nadya realizes just how _tired_ she is.

“You’ve helped me, tonight.” There are so many things to tell Kamilah, Adrian. Finally a step closer _and_ she gets to rub being right in their faces on top of it. “Really… _really_ helped — maybe more than you know.”

His chin raises slightly. “Is that a _‘thank you?’”_

“It’s a question.”

_Why did you do it?_

Valdas’ thumb tickles the bare skin of her wrist in gentle motions. It’s intimate — weirdly so. Which means Nadya is completely justified when she takes her hand back.

Until he squeezes tighter, that is.

“This was the last act of my own free will. Perhaps not forever—hopefully not forever; I’ve had quite a few _forevers_ already and they are dreadfully long.”

Nadya tugs again in vain. It’s like a completely different man sitting across from her, now. Darker; deeper and digging deeper still. She doesn’t want to dig deeper, though, but the longer Valdas holds on the more the choice is taken from her.

_Another thing taken from her._

Her voice cracks slightly. “Valdas… please let me go.” They’re still out in the open air but it breathes heavy and stifling in her lungs. Reeking of dust and mothballs and other old, ancient things.

It’s the _Musea Sanguis_ all over again. The onyx coffin that haunts her nightmares — the ones that belong solely to Nadya Al Jamil.

She meets Valdas’ eyes and the fathoms of them are too many to count.

“I wanted to help you, Nadya. I wanted this, the act before the sin, to be one that mattered — one that meant something.”

“W-What _sin?”_

“Forgive me.”

“Val—”

He’s holding her too close — Nadya can’t pull back far enough. But someone, probably Kamilah — definitely Kamilah, should be proud of her that she struggles every moment.

“You don’t have to do this.”

“I wish that were the case.”

All the way up until his fingertips brush her temple and the world goes dark.

* * *

In between waking and being awake there is a place where all is calm and well. Where she feels safe and warm and at peace. How often does she get _that_ these days? Is it any wonder she clings to it desperately?

Long fingers brush through her hair. There is a warmth about them, even dark as they are — even though they haven’t seen the sunlight in so many years.

_Lost, lonely — yet they comfort her even now._

Nadya opens her eyes and the first thing she sees is the shifting canopy of leaves overhead. _No—not leaves._ Dark green fabric, sheer and draped around the four posters at each corner of the bed and over her head like an old ritual dance. One that called upon forgotten things and spoke in relic tongues. She can taste the words of them; bright mint and heavy sage. All she need do is open her mouth.

_“Ssh… not yet, my darling.”_

The hand slips from her hair and Nadya keens at the loss. Turns towards where the touch might have come from like a child comforted in a storm.

The woman beside her has been wandering the dark for so long. Nadya can smell crisp groundwater on Her skin; salt on the back of Her tongue. The rich caramel of Her covered in the brightest white she’s ever seen.

“I’m scared,” Nadya tells Her. _Is it possible to know a stranger all her life?_

Perhaps it is. Just as it’s possible for the woman to laugh above her, face just out of sight, and for it to sound like every song she’s ever known or loved and also like nothing she’s ever had the luck to hear before.

_“I know. But you must be brave.”_

“I’m tired of being brave.”

 _“I was, too,”_ Nadya sighs as she feels an arm come around her shoulders; strong and more certain than she’ll ever be, _“but that does not mean your trials are done. Be brave for yourself; and be brave for the both of us.”_

She’s about to protest when the door opens on the other side of the room.

Nadya sits upright at the sound; fights through the waves of nausea and vertigo that wash over her and blind her with colorless spots of light behind her open eyes. She reaches out — waits for the stranger woman’s touch — but it doesn’t come.

When she can see everything right again Nadya doesn’t understand why she was waiting for someone there, anyway. The bed is barely rumpled. She’s alone.

“Ease yourself, Nadya. Your heart sounds like a racehorse.”

_Oh, hell no._

She doesn’t have to see him to know the dark figure that watches her with the closed door at his back.

Valdas crosses the room in several long strides and holds something out to her. She knows the glint of her glasses in the otherwise dim light and snatches them from him; but tosses them onto the bedspread to be abandoned.

She doesn’t _want_ to see him; the false sympathy in his eyes. He’s lied to Nadya enough already.

“Where am I?”

“Putting your glasses on might help.”

“I don’t want to look at your face.”

Valdas sighs. “Nadya…”

“Don’t you dare,” the rage that seethes from her clenched teeth surprises them both but gotta say — Nadya’s kind of a fan of it, “don’t. you. _dare_ say my name like that. When you…”

She looks around again. Tries to keep dignified through wide eyes even though everything is a blur. Now it’s the principle of the thing. She can just make out the cut frame of the door beyond him.

Nadya spreads her fingers out on the coverlet like she’s searching. Can’t see Valdas’ face but she knows—she knows him maybe a little better than she knows herself right now. Just like she knows when he thinks he realizes what she’s doing and reaches out to grab them; to help her.

She clutches a blind hand desperately around the tassel of a pillow and whips it at his face as hard as she can.

_“Asshole!”_

The pillow does about as much damage to the millennia-old vampire as, well, a pillow would. But it gives her an opening and Nadya takes it.

Launches herself from the bed and hits the ground running; stumbling — her depth perception absolutely shot — but clear of him and with the black seam of freedom just barely in her sights.

It takes two steps for her to feel an ironclad weight clasping around her arm to pull her back.

“No—no no _no!”_ Nadya screams; struggles against Valdas’ hold but the vampire is too strong. She might as well be trying to tear down a skyscraper with her bare hands.

He wraps both arms around her middle and knocks the breath from her lungs. But desperation — it’s a funny thing. Gives Nadya just that little k _i_ ck of adrenaline she needs to keep fighting even if she chokes on every effort.

“Please stop this,” he growls in her ear, “the only one you’re hurting is yourself!”

“You’re insane. You’re a psychopath!” _I’m a fool for trusting you._

“Nadya I can explain —”

“Don’t wanna hear it! Guh— _lemme go!”_

“I was the lesser of two evils I assure you!”

“Bull!” She pops her ankle and feels it collide between his legs with a fleeting satisfaction. Valdas crumples slightly, hisses at the pain that lances through him. Just enough for her to pry free and make another, equally mad dash for freedom.

The moment Nadya clutches at the door handle it jerks open; sends her flying backwards where she collides painfully with the rug.

 _“Grief,_ Valdas, she’s a fucking human child. How hard can it be?”

She almost doesn’t recognize Isseya at first — the proud woman of the abyss Nadya had last seen in the Council Chambers barely even a shadow flickered on her face.

In the time it takes the other vampire to assess the situation, though, Nadya is already scrambling ready to crawl her way out if that’s what it will take.

Valdas growls around his injury. “Iss’—”

“Yes yes, I’m not a fool.” Then Nadya screams, loud as she possibly can — tries to tear through the claw raking its way through her hair _such a violent touch where was the kindness of the dark from before_ but it hurts too much _too much_ and no matter how hard she hits Isseya’s grip doesn’t let up in the slightest.

She yanks Nadya up by her hair like a puppet on strings. “And I think you’ll find it a little bit harder to incapacitate me in such a way.”

“Let me go!”

“Need I even humor that with an answer?”

Valdas comes into view through the pain prickling at the edges of her vision. “Let her go, beloved.”

Behind her Isseya’s voice drips with irritation. “But —”

 _“Isseya._ You know our orders.”

“Well I’ve harmed more than a few hairs on her head. Better to ask forgiveness, no?”

“No.”

Finally she’s released and the suddenness of it sends Nadya flying forward. Her hands and knees burning against thick wool fibers everything blurrier than blurry from the tears and she tries not to think too hard about the hairs she had felt torn from her head.

But, really, it’s her fault in the end — for thinking it was gonna be that easy.

 _When is_ anything _ever that easy?_

“Are you mostly unharmed?”

His legs come into her smudged view before Nadya can even blink. Valdas reaches out a hand in offering; she smacks it away instead. “Like I’d fall for that twice,” she mutters ragged; feels the last breaths of her screams for help itching in the back of her throat but knows, ultimately, they’re of no use. Standing alone is an effort but she manages it because she will _not_ look weaker than she already is.

“Am I…” Nadya’s scoff is a bitter surprise in her mouth, “are you _really_ doing this right now? Good vampire, bad vampire?”

“You think _this_ is bad, just wait until the appetizer,” says Isseya — _too close_ says Nadya’s entire nervous system and every hair on the back of her neck; has her jumping back but that puts her closer to Valdas and _crap on a cracker they have her pinned._

“The appetizer being me, I’m guessing?”

To her surprise, the vampiress laughs. “No, I’d be looking forward to the evening far more if that were the case.”

 _The evening._ It has Nadya running across the room to the large fuzzy shape of floor-to-ceiling curtains. There’s no way — absolutely no way it isn’t dawn yet.

And she’s _kind of_ right. But this is one of those situations where that means about as much as being wrong.

The sherbet gradients of the setting sun bring a fresh wave of tears to her eyes. “It’s been… a whole day?” _And they haven’t come for me? Not Adrian, not Kamilah… nobody?_

Valdas, ever vigilant of the sun, is careful as he comes up beside her. Nadya’s glasses catch the light in his hand.

He almost sounds relieved when Nadya finally takes them, practically crushing the lenses against her face. “I confess I had hoped extending our evening would give them time to find you. But the years have made your friends soft and trusting.”

“What does _that_ mean?

Isseya comes around to join them — awkward, all of them, too domestic for the pain she still feels at her failed escape — and keeps to the shadows too as she sits. She nods to the window. “Open your eyes, see for yourself.”

Nadya has to shade her eyes with her hand to see much of anything. Wherever they are there aren’t any buildings to block the path of light.

When the garden finally comes into view down below Nadya chokes on her own breath.

It takes a bit of searching but she finds the bridge and familiar pond just at the edge of her window’s view. It had been over a year now but suddenly it feels like no time has passed at all; like the Ball is still in full swing and she’s still Cinderella before the apocalypse.

At least she knows where she is now. Upstate New York; five hours’ ride by old-fashioned locomotive. She remembers the journey to Marcel’s castle and the Awakening Ball like it was yesterday.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is one of those changes/tweaks to the main plot arc that I’ve had in mind since I began Destiny I, so I’m really excited for both this and next week’s chapter. I’m still getting a feel for how exactly Nadya experiences a lot of the Bloodkeeper visions/images/memories, with this being the first time it actually changes perspective. Depending on how well it flows (and how well it’s received) I’m looking forward to incorporating that in the future so long as it isn’t too confusing! Let me know what you thought about it guys!
> 
> Comments and critique would be fabulous. Thank you for reading!


	4. The Feast

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Should she really be surprised that Valdas tricked her, kidnapped her, and now is forcing her to attend a dinner party? Well... that last bit isn't exactly a villain cliche, but Nadya learns all too quickly who the real villain truly is.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **chapter content warnings:** language, alcohol, kidnapping, blood, corpses, threats, implied violence, hallucinations

They aren’t exactly whispering but Nadya still feels like she’s intruding on something she shouldn’t.

“I’ll leave you two to get ready. He’ll want everything to be perfect and you know how he obsesses over the smallest detail.” 

Valdas cups Isseya’s face, threads his fingers through the curls at her temples, and kisses her hairline. The sight of them — creased foreheads and the way crinkles rest just at the corners of their eyes in age and fear and in acknowledgment of all the lonely souls who have walked the paths of grief before them — burns behind Nadya’s eyelids against her will.

She looks away before she gets swept up; before she drowns in them.

“And remember, my love,” he rests their foreheads together, “she can help us. I know it. I’ve felt the power myself — he was right.”

Isseya flickers heavy-lidded eyes in Nadya’s direction. She feels the hairs at the back of her neck stand up; alert.

“That she _can_ does not mean she _will,_ Valdas.”

“Have faith.”

“In who — the fledgling child?”

“In me.”

Nadya looks back — quickly wishes she hadn’t. Every other time she’s seen the woman smile it’s been in some twisted form of malice. It’s been Isseya taking pleasure in someone else’s pain.

But that’s genuine _hope_ she sees now. She’s felt that brief-but-meaningful lifted weight before and well enough to know it when she sees it.

Looking like that, Nadya understands how easy it must have been to fall in love with her.

Valdas barely spares a glance Nadya’s way — his nod curt and formal before he departs and closes the door behind him. She doesn’t even bother trying to run for freedom any more.

She just has to hope that the longer the night goes on the closer Kamilah is to finding her.

“What did he mean,” she asks; and finds it easy not to take it personally that Isseya refuses to look at her, “he said we had to _‘get ready,’_ what did he mean by that?”

“What business is it of yours?”

“Stuff that usually involves me is my business.”

“Not when you have no choice in the matter.”

“Like you don’t?”

Nadya’s gut lurches at the sudden red-eyed glare she’s staring into. But she holds her ground — which is a lot more than to be said for the last time she and the Trinity vampire were alone together.

Unlike last time, though, it doesn’t last. The heated fury flitting away, smothered into embers.

“I… suppose such a case could be made, yes.”

She makes her way around the room and when she even gets close to the bed Nadya curls her knees up tighter to her chest on instinct. If Isseya sees it (if she gets any joy out of it, more likely) she says nothing. Just opens another door and flicks on the lights to an en suite.

 _This is your chance,_ but even her thoughts don’t hold a full heart in it. So Nadya stays put.

Her gaze falls on a nearby pillow — it’s just a pillow; as fluffed and embroidered and tasseled as Nadya’s failed weapon. But it triggers a memory. Or is it a dream?

“Who was the other woman?” she asks — though she isn’t holding her breath for an answer. “She looked familiar — someone else from the Ball?”

_“What other woman? There’s no one else here.”_

Because she would know, wouldn’t she? “She was in here before Valdas. Having someone watch me in my sleep is creepy, by the way!”

When Isseya returns she’s wielding an ornate hairbrush like someone would a kitchen knife and doesn’t _that_ make Nadya press herself back further against the headboard. “Do you call me a liar?”

“N-No,” _but…_ “but I remember someone was here.”

“Haven’t you had a hard time telling fantasy from the truth?” And she didn’t _need_ to come at Nadya that hard but she does anyway. “She was in your head. Now — come here.”

Of course she doesn’t — which was the wrong decision to make and one Nadya doesn’t even get the opportunity to regret before she’s being shoved into a chair in front of the nearby vanity. “Hold still,” Isseya growls; and this time Nadya listens.

Everything she does is methodical; stiff and out of an obligation Nadya still doesn’t understand. But at the risk of being tossed around like a doll again she complies with every one of Isseya’s clipped commands. “Turn your head,” “remove your glasses,” “hold still — you fidget like a squirming hog.” And she isn’t gentle about her movements, either.

Though when the vampire steps back to observe the high-and-tight bun she’s somehow fashioned out of the impossible she does give a little _“hmm”_ of self-congratulations.

“Strip,” comes next and that crosses _so many lines_ Nadya doesn’t even know where to begin.

“No.”

“Was I asking?”

Which is how Nadya ends up in nothing but her underwear trying not-so-subtly to cover herself. Though Isseya apparently couldn’t care less; barely turns an eye to her that isn’t observing something only on the surface before she’s digging in the armoire in the corner.

Finally she pulls out a dress — beautiful and plum and _way more skin than Nadya’s ever shown in her life_ and probably not something she can decline — and gives it a careless shove into Nadya’s hands. Nadya tries to grab it before the fabric hits the floor — by the looks of it such a thing might actually be a federal crime — and _god forbid_ their fingers brush.

Isseya recoils as though burned. The suddenness of it has Nadya stumbling back. “Keep your distance. Now dress — quickly.”

 _Suspicious_ might be the understatement of the century. Though it sparks in Nadya a thought, one confirmed when she struggles to reach for the zipper at her back and the woman hesitates to help.

“Why are you scared to touch me?” she all but accuses, “I’m not the one of us who bites, remember.”

The very implication which Isseya takes a little _too_ personally. “As if I would fear a thing like you.”

“Well whatever we’re doing there’s no way I’m doing it half dressed so either help me or fess up.”

She does help — eventually. Somehow she still manages to avoid skin contact, too. But when the dress is zipped properly there’s a shield once again between them; this one of rich velvet. Isseya’s fingertips rest underneath Nadya’s ribs light as a feather but make it impossible for her to pull away.

A glance in the vanity mirror tells her everything she needs to know. Epics and tragedies spun in the dark eyes watching Nadya’s reflection.

“He said… at this stage of your condition that… _touch_ is the trigger.” _Of course._ Nadya nods.

“Just as he told me of the memory you conjured. How do you do it? How do you choose?”

Isseya’s own touch turns pressing; makes Nadya feel like she’s about to be pushed into the floor and lower still. “If I knew I would tell you.”

“Would you?” comes the snapped reply. This time Nadya doesn’t let it phase her. This time she knows what that forked tongue means; what it hides.

“I would, I mean it,” and she continues more for herself than for Isseya, because like she’s gonna let all of this happen and _not_ get her two cents in; unlikely, “because this might surprise you, Isseya, but not everyone is as selfish as you two are. Some people do things even though they know they won’t be getting anything in return.”

Nadya actually _watches_ the incredible amount of restraint it takes for the woman not to rip her throat out right there. She watches with her head held high and maybe a little bit of haughtiness — almost taunting her.

It doesn’t work.

Whatever Isseya is doing here — whatever she and Valdas both are doing here — it’s more important than two thousand years’ worth of pride.

“Wait here,” the vampire tells her; and she actually sounds a lot scarier in this weird state of calm more than she ever did with her fangs bared.

Enough to keep Nadya rooted to the spot while she goes about getting herself ready.

The moon is high in the sky by the time Valdas comes to fetch them. He knocks but doesn’t wait for an invitation to enter and he cleans up just as well in a tuxedo as he had in his old Roman fare — Nadya won’t deny it. He offers his arm to Isseya and she takes it in all of her splendor. Shiny and sleek and like the thing weighing her down is her own perfection — not the pain she feels every time she remembers she’s alive.

Her partner takes in every inch of her like it’s the very first time; like she’s the only thing in his entire world. Judging by the way he almost startles when he catches sight of Nadya behind her — that’s not too far from the truth.

“You look lovely, Nadya.” But Isseya preens under the implied compliment. Nadya just shrugs it off.

“Come, we’ve made him wait long enough.”

Nadya stops in the doorway. “Who?”

And it isn’t the first look of remorse the man gives her… but it’s the first one she actually believes.

“Come.”

* * *

No matter how much she wants to Nadya stops herself from punching the familiar bespectacled vampire who pulls her chair out for her.

She’s _not_ a violent person, really she isn’t. But the same kind of feeling has her stomach in knots as it did back during Adrian’s trial; after all hadn’t Jameson betrayed Kamilah just as Nicole betrayed Adrian?

Jameson waits for her to sit. Nadya doesn’t feel like sitting.

“How could you do this to them?”

“If you’d be seated, Miss.”

“Screw that — answer me. How could you do this to Kamilah? She gave you a spot in her Clan.” _Which has to mean something, doesn’t it?_

Apparently not. “If you would be seated, Miss.”

Nadya makes her protest well known despite the fact that she does, in fact, sit. Jameson pushes her chair in maybe a little _too_ tight before offering the same courtesy to the Trinity.

From what little she’s seen of the so-called scholar it’s not exactly unusual for him to be acting the way he is. Stiff, formal and adhering to rules of etiquette they probably stopped teaching around the same time as the invention of the light bulb. He’s the picture of politeness and it’s just plain unnerving.

The dining room is one of the places that had been roped off during the Ball. Nadya actually prefers it this way. It makes the castle feel a little less familiar and with all the awful memories she _already_ has tied to this place… it’s probably for the best.

Rather than taking a seat himself, Jameson keeps busy with a decanted wine on a silver serving cart. Which leaves one place — the head of the long _(long)_ table — and one guest unaccounted for.

“Where is Marcel?”

Valdas and Isseya exchange glances across the table centerpiece; a bouquet of blood-red orchids and deep purple roses covered in thorns. _Night-blooming flowers,_ she recalls.

“It was decided that the young Lord not join us for this evening’s meal. This is all very distressing to you, of course, and he agreed it would not do well to make it worse.” Valdas answers.

“Wait — _decided?_ Decided by who?”

 _“‘Whom,’”_ he corrects, but chooses not to answer.

Instead he waves two fingers in a summoning gesture even Nadya would be insulted by. “Jingyi, the wine if you would.”

 _Jingyi_ is apparently Jameson; even more apparent is his contempt for the name and, Nadya is quickly realizing, the vampires who would use it. It bleeds through his teeth clenched around his words _“yes, my Lord,”_ but the Trinity don’t deem it worth even the smallest acknowledgment. Their attention is instead reserved for Nadya.

“Sweet reds, correct?”

Nadya hates to admit it but she’s glad for the distraction of Jameson’s suddenly very close proximity to her neck while he pours. “Sorry?”

Valdas nods to the contents of her glass. “You prefer sweet reds.”

“What’s with you and being creepy about my eating and drinking habits?”

“Live as long as we have and you learn to differentiate people by things other than their faces and their names.” Valdas takes his filled glass and gives it an idle sip. “For example; you are hardly the first _Nadya_ in our lives. But you are Nadya of sweet red wines and terrible eyesight. That sets you apart.”

Isseya’s snort is, like the rest of her façade, perfectly maintained and somehow glittering. She looks to her lover in amusement. “As if the rest of her did not?”

“Your dinner conversation is as tactless as ever, beloved.”

“Well… yes, but _that_ aside,” she turns to Nadya and raises her own glass in a toast either forced or mocking — it’s hard to tell, “he picked a _Lambrusco_ especially for tonight, for you.”

And yeah, okay, any other time one or even two incredibly attractive and incredibly flirtatious people fixate on her with such intensity Nadya might find it in herself to be flattered. But she’s seen what they can do and how little they can feel doing it. That darkness—Valdas’ darkness—she still has trouble shaking.

So for now she’ll settle on feeling uncomfortable.

“Oh…” _Quick, what do fancy people do with wine again?_ Nadya racks her brain hastily until a vision of Kamilah on their last date comes up in her mind’s eye. She swirls the contents slowly (and in doing so tries very hard not to make the literary parallels between red wine and—y’know— _blood_ but ultimately fails) and brings the glass just shy of the tip of her nose.

“It’s very… wine.” _Nadya… no…_

So she chugs the entire glass on the first go to avoid saying anything else incredibly stupid.

Thank god Jameson doesn’t have to be asked to top her off.

Jameson who disappears through a set of doors and returns not moments later with a new cart bearing trays of small nibbles and bits. It’s almost getting difficult to play along — like she’s supposed to pretend she isn’t being held against her will, dressed up like Secretary Barbie, and still is refused any actual answers? But when a plate is set down in front of her Nadya’s stomach remembers she had declined (with big big regret) to eat at the cafe… so she pushes down any worries of _this is probably poisoned they’re totally poisoning me_ and samples a bit of everything.

Scraping cutlery, chewing, swallowing; scraping cutlery, chewing, Jameson’s muffled footsteps on request, swallowing. Over and over again. What, are they saving the juicy gossip for their missing guest?

Their plates are cleared before Nadya finishes, which is just as well because now that it remembers what food tastes like her body is ready for more than snacks. This time the scholar’s cart bears four silver-domed platters that he places at the head of the table last.

Before Nadya can do a dramatic food network reveal Valdas startles her with a quick tilt of his head. Listening for something her human ears can’t quite hear. Whatever it is it sets the Trinity on edge; makes Isseya look about ready to crawl out of her own skin and Valdas tug at his collar and loosen his tie even though it can’t exactly choke him out.

Nadya slowly slinks her hand back from her cover almost comically.

The double doors at the other end of the room swing inward with dramatic gusto. The small breeze that comes with it pushes an unfamiliar and definitely unpleasant smell against her crinkling nose. Not even the centerpiece flowers or the aroma of the food so close can cover it up.

Her vampire companions stand with creaking chairs just in time for his grand (if trumpetless) entrance.

It’s not an active resistance to this the unmasked authority that keeps her seated. Nadya’s just not sure her legs would be able to hold her up right now. So sitting and not collapsing is probably more respectable, right? She’s rambling — _worse than that she’s rambling in her own head._

What else is she supposed to do, though? All these months of crippling headaches and nightmares unending and the feeling of losing herself and filling up the space with a bunch of unknowns — nothing like this has ever happened. She’s seen faces, spoken names, held identities of her own that she could never be. And this is the first time she’s come face to face with one of them.

Nadya _knows_ this man; she’s _been_ him, been loved and Turned and banished and even killed by him. The things she’s seen… the things she’s _done_ with those hands as her own both pale in moonlight and drenched dark near-black with blood how his fingertips look spread wide over the tanned slopes of Kamilah’s bare skin and the strength with which they’ve plunged into hundreds, no, thousands, no, _hundreds of thousands_ of ribcages—

And he’s more than that, too. He’s the man who brought vampires to America, who built his Shadow Kingdom with a conviction Nadya feels like a knife in her gut.

He’s the man who Turned Kamilah, Adrian. The man who loved both of them before eternity did.

The worst part of it is that Gaius Augustine is _beautiful._ That’s just an objective fact. It’s what makes him so seductive. No wonder the world has fallen on bended knee to him. He looks like a god.

In a way, perhaps he is.

Jameson moves quickly — and with an anticipation that definitely wasn’t there before; something like eagerness — to pull out the high-backed chair but Gaius waves him off with a flippant hand. The same carelessness shown by Valdas but from this man Jameson accepts it without disdain.

There’s a reverence by which Gaius grasps the velvet backing of his chair. Deep in every fingertip; an appreciation Nadya empathizes with against her will. He knows what it’s like to not have such things; little things, insignificant things… or they were until he was entombed.

_He looks good, uncomfortably good, for a guy who spent a hella long time starving in a black stone coffin._

He sweeps a crystal blue gaze over his dinner guests but doesn’t seem to register Nadya’s lack of respect. Actually she suspects he only backtracks to her because she’s on the verge of a panic attack and is conveniently the only one in the room with a heartbeat.

“Nadya,” croons a voice she recognizes instantly; her mysterious guide through the winding paths of the _Musea Sanguis,_ “we finally meet — well… face to face.”

He smiles at her; it isn’t returned. Even if Nadya _wanted_ to say something to him she’s not entirely certain she wouldn’t just turn off her filter and let him have it right there. Her mom would probably forgive such _unladylike_ behavior in this one case.

Only her tongue is knotted up too tight for even a little peep.

_Of course now would be the time I learn to shut up._

Gaius watches and waits, and when he finally accepts she’s zipped her lips he throws his head back in jovial laughter. The sound makes Isseya crumple the steel fork under her hand into a ball like tin foil.

He stops just as abruptly. “Is this really how we want to begin things? The choice is yours — and yours alone.”

 _No, it wasn’t,_ her mind quickly reminds her but Nadya hasn’t forgotten. She didn’t get to choose this awful, terrible thing in her head. Just like she didn’t get to choose to be here; the definition of kidnapping or nearly so. Nadya didn’t even get to choose her own dress! And frankly her thighs are really cold in here.

It’s in that moment that Nadya learns everything she needs to know about Gaius Augustine. He’s a beautiful face and honeyed words but hell will freeze over before he lets anyone forget he’s also death incarnate.

In a blink Gaius’ smile is gone. “Dolling her up was a waste, Valdemaras, if the time could have been better spent teaching her simple manners.”

Valdas fixates on a spot on the table. His head lowered in respect — and fear.

“My apologies, Augustine.”

The older vampire throws him a look of disdain. “Not that I did not anticipate it and prepare myself for the disappointment. You’ve always fallen just short of the mark — little _Made-God.”_

He seats himself; undoes the black button of his trimmed dinner jacket and relaxes into his chair like a king on a throne. She’s seen his throne — this is exactly how he would sit upon it. On either side of them the Trinity sink back into their chairs and Nadya realizes, now, the cruelty with which Gaius has devised their arrangement.

Isseya’s hand twitches and closes; hard enough for her blood to try and fill the gaps in her fist. She just wants to touch Valdas in comfort. And Gaius has made sure she cannot. In some strange way her heart breaks for them — or is breaking with them — or her heart _is_ theirs and breaks as them — or…

_This is really starting to make her head hurt._

Jameson resumes his duties with an obvious change in attitude. He fills Gaius’ glass with a different decanter — the contents of which are still a deep and rich red but she’s been living with vampires for a year now; Nadya knows what blood looks like. And the sight of it takes away all her appetite. Even as Jameson takes the covers off of their plates and reveals what looks like a delicious and expensive cut of steak… she can’t stop looking at the elder vampire’s cup.

“Marvelous,” Gaius compliments, “absolutely marvelous. Boundless are humanity’s shortcomings but they’ve always retained a passion for decorating what they eat. I suppose that may be the one thing left I have in common with them.”

He looks to Nadya with a smile — as if she’ll somehow understand, or agree with him. But she is decorated tonight. And she knows exactly what he eats.

“Don’t you agree?”

Nadya once told Kamilah that she was prone to doing stupid things when she was scared. Good to know that still holds true. “That what, you have something in common with humanity? That’s a hard no.”

Valdas’ knife _scraaapes_ against the china plateware; his quick recovery is honestly impressive.

In a mockery of disappointment Gaius lets his head hang and as he does the waves of his dark brown hair fall in a shadow over his face. Nadya pushes her wine away so fast and so hard she nearly spills it all over the tablecloth.

Because she needs to be clear-headed for this; and she’s obviously already tipsy. How else is she supposed to explain it; he way his skin goes from vivacious and full to taut and decaying and grey; pulled back thin over the shape of his skull.

It makes Nadya think of the strange smell that preceded Gaius’ arrival. _The smell of rot and death,_ she realizes, and can’t even bear the _sight_ of her plate when she does.

And with everything else going weird and wrong in her life Nadya isn’t even surprised that when she looks back up Gaius once again looks perfect; not a hair out of place.

“Why are you so adamant on rejecting my hospitality? Surely you’ve realized this is all for _your_ comfort.”

She chokes on her laugh. “All of _what?_ The meal?”

“Of course. To serve purpose as both an apology for the… unfortunate terms of your arrival —”

“You mean my _kidnapping.”_

Gaius ignores her interruption; “— and to ease any discomfort you might have about me. I imagine Adrian hasn’t exactly been singing my praises.”

Petulantly Nadya leans against the back of her chair; slumping a little as she does with her arms crossed over her chest.

“Actually, kinda the opposite.” 

Of course that grabs his attention, but she doesn’t expect the strange delight captured in his smile. “Is that so?”

“Yeah, given that he hasn’t mentioned you at all. And—before you ask—neither has Kamilah.”

The fork in his grasp bends and is made useless. But then Jameson is there with a replacement in hand and she doesn’t even get the satisfaction of Gaius being inconvenienced.

“I know you believe the course you stay now is, perhaps, the upper hand. But dear Nadya it takes much more than that to get under my skin.”

“Good to know.”

_“Nadya.”_

Is Valdas seriously trying that right now — does he really think that after what he’s done that’s an okay thing to be doing? Because _no, it’s not,_ and she’ll be more than happy to stop whatever she’s doing that gave him that impression. “No.”

“If you would calm yourself —”

That’s it — Nadya snaps.

 _“‘Calm myself?’_ You’ve gotta be joking. Because that’s a _really good joke._ Right up there with how you reached out to me, offered me help, and wedged a _knife_ in my back with a psychic roofie.” She chokes on her voice, thick and wet, but to Nadya’s credit she’s gotten really good at keeping how badly she wants to sob inside and close to her chest.

“The things I’ve seen him do — the things I’ve _lived through_ because of him? I told you, Valdas — _I told you_ how this is making me feel. I… I _confided in you._ Told you things I haven’t even told my best friend, things like how I feel like I’m falling apart at the seams… how sick I feel because I shouldn’t know what killing someone feels like but I do—

“And now, after _kidnapping me_ and bringing me to _him_ —” she jabs her finger at Gaius who simply watches; silent, bemused, “— the man who has done more of those horrors than I can count — horrors I’ve been forced to live through… you think you have a right to tell me to be _calm?”_

She’s splotchy and flushed and can hear her pulse in her temples but nope no way Nadya regrets absolutely nothing. Even though were this any ordinary dinner party — or even ordinary _adjacent_ — she’d be mortified enough to flee from the room crying.

Then Gaius is clapping; polite and reserved. Jameson goes to join but doesn’t get in even _one_ before a glare from Isseya has him practically cowering where he stands.

 _“Brava signorina, brava,”_ and _really,_ does _nothing_ phase this guy, “it’s been far too long since I’ve had dinner and a show. It’s the little things you miss, really.”

“It wasn’t for you.” Nadya snaps with far less heat.

“No, no I see that it wasn’t. It _is_ fascinating, though.”

“What is?”

“How you seem to attract the affections and loyalty of my progeny.”

It gives her whiplash. “Wait—seriously?” But Valdas doesn’t deny it. “So you’re the one who set him free.”

There’s no use in pretending this is going to be a conversation over a polite and decadent meal, so Gaius sets his utensils down and dabs at his mouth with his napkin. Nadya swears she isn’t hallucinating when she sees morbidity and decay for a hand where the cloth covers it.

“My my my, you’re more informed than I could have hoped for. And this regardless of your efforts to spite me, Valdemaras.”

“I know how entertained you are by the pursuit.”

“Is that what you call it?” Gaius nods; makes Valdas look so petty — so small, “Well I suppose one of us ought to succeed in the end. And even Nadya here knows such a thing is impossible for you.”

 _Don’t bring me into this_ she wants to say, but to what end? She already is _in this._ Way _way_ deep in it. Drowning, practically.

So what’s the harm in diving deeper if she’s already going to die choking on water? Too far with the analogy, maybe.

“I know the Council locked you up because you were mad with power. Because so many people were dying and they knew you wouldn’t listen to reason.”

Nadya feels her confidence waiver at something as little as Gaius cocking a brow. “Oh please, do go on.”

“I know there’s a throne under Central Park that once belonged to you.”

 _“Once?_ Who sits there now, pray tell?”

“No one.”

“Then perhaps it is mine still.”

“I know you’ve killed more people than I think even you remember.”

Gaius hums. “Possibly. The ends more than justify the means.”

 _No they don’t._ “And I know that everything you do—all the killing, Turning, plotting and kingdoms and thrones… it’s all for her.”

A hollow caricature of sentiment crosses his face and if Nadya were a bigger person (bolder, braver, any other _b_ -word for that matter) she’d smack it right off him in a heartbeat.

“My Queen has —”

“No, I don’t mean Kamilah.” The name tumbles from her lips before she can hold it back. 

“I meant _your_ Maker… I meant Rheya.”

Nadya’s having dinner with the dead but only now is the room silent as the grave. Gaius’ expression is unreadable no matter how much she tries. Valdas can’t quite meet her in the eyes and Isseya, well she’s the opposite; like she’s looking at Nadya for the first time and with tears prickling in her eyes.

“Then it’s true…” She laughs in the way mourners are reminded of small fragments of their loved ones’ they’d forgotten. “It’s… you. You’re _her.”_

 _Her? Who her?_ “Indeed she is. And a far more advanced Bloodkeeper than the last I possessed.” Gaius drinks deeply from his glass like he _wants_ her to marinate in his words; wants her to panic from them. “You’ve served me well, Jameson.”

And Jameson nods with a beaming smile. “Thank you, Master. Anything to see our good work done.”

Gaius thumbs a stray drop of blood from the corner of his lips and sucks it clean. “My turn, I think.” But when he stands this time he stands alone. “Shall I tell you what it is that _I know,_ Nadya?”

She has a strong feeling she can’t exactly say _no._ That feeling would be correct.

“I know the forces that govern our supernatural world are never without a sense of irony. I know that you, the genuine Bloodkeeper, are more valuable than you realize. You call them visions; nightmares. We —” he gestures an arm wide to their vampire audience, “— would call them memories. The Bloodkeeper has been for as long as we have been. Back through the centuries, the millennia, all the way to _my Goddess,_ the woman you name Rheya.

“The more I spread our kind across the world, the more memories there were for her to see. Too many for a mortal mind, though. The last one could not give me what I seek. So I knew when the time came… I could not risk losing her again. Her gift had to be… _cultivated_ properly.”

Gaius leans forward against the table with palms spread wide. Pushing darkness; death out into the world and all of it in _her_ direction. “I had my doubts about you, _Nadya._ I am not above admitting it was the incessant vehemence of my progeny that convinced me to pursue you; not a mere human dabbling in psychic parlor tricks but the _real thing._ But you’ve convinced me now; you are that which I am unable to deny. 

“So few know of her; my Goddess of Blood and Fury, the First Vampire. Fewer still know the truth of my beginnings; that I am the last of the pure, her devoted one. But you do, Nadya, _you do._ And the joy that knowledge brings me… I dare say in my current state I am unable to express it justly.”

She’d like to tell him he’s expressing it just fine; perhaps a little _too much_ even. Eyes wide, practically maniacal; the only way to widen his smile would be to take the cutlery to the corners of his mouth and tug.

But Gaius is like all beautiful things — the longer she looks the less perfection she takes in; the more flaws start to leap off the canvas of him and scream to her for attention. 

His irises once a blue as bright as the sky now faded pale like a heralding storm, even the pupil gone grey — pearls perfectly fit into the eye sockets of his skull now a little too prominent, protruding a little _too_ stark. 

Teeth even and dazzling cracked, thin like eggshells and the same kind of not-quite-white. All the white he could ever need rather rests in thin wisps on the top of his head in clumps and disarrayed — torn out from decade after decade of endless isolation.

Nadya came here (however unwillingly, that didn’t matter now) for the truth. That truth now stands before her in all its repulsive glory and she doesn’t have the luxury of waiting for some unexpected shadow to pass it by. Gaius Augustine hasn’t aged well; not at all. He is a corpse; now as ugly on the outside as he is within. All that without even mentioning the smell of _death_ her senses will no longer deny.

A breath catches in her throat. Nadya quickly covers her nose and mouth with the back of her hand; couldn’t give less of a care about subtlety or Gaius’ feelings on his condition. She can’t look away and Valdas’ stare is too heavy for her to deny; the weight of sympathy.

The Trinity, Jameson; they’ve been seeing Gaius as he really is this whole time. His masquerade; just another lie Nadya didn’t ask for.

His voice was a ruse, too. Because now his every word creaks of old stone lids prying themselves from their coffins. “You ought to be a little more cautious with the tales your expressions tell. A lesser man might take offense to such… distaste.”

If he expects Nadya to apologize for _hurting his feelings_ he’d best be ready to live another couple thousand years before that happens. “What was it? A—A veil of some kind?”

“Of a sort — you learn quickly. But it was merely a glamour to ensure the evening was an amenable one.”

“For my peace of mind,” unconsciously Nadya plucks at a string; not a real one but one within her mind — everyone else has been digging around in there so she might as well join the party, “or for your vanity?”

Gaius’ decaying face can barely show a frown but some vibes just can’t be mistaken. “Cheeky.”

“So what do you want from me?” Nadya asks; with a calm even she didn’t expect. “You’ve spent all this time planning, plotting, torturing—sorry, _cultivating_ —me… what _memory_ was it all for, Gaius?”

He resumes his seat and smiles slow; satisfied. Maybe he thinks she’s being complacent… and maybe there’s a part of her that is.

“I need you to find something for me; an object of great importance.”

“Something tells me it’s not the teddy bear you lost when you were five… hundred.”

This time Gaius laughs a bit more reserved. He taps a withered finger to his lips in thought and Nadya pretends for her own sake that she doesn’t see a fingernail just fall off and onto his half-empty plate. “It _is_ an object of mine; an amulet. And it was, at one time, my most cherished possession on this earth.”

All of his guests (willing and otherwise) watch the unconscious way Gaius trails his fingertip down his chin, his throat — to rest just shy of the last button done up on his crisp red dress shirt. They watch as he traces an idle and misshapen circle. Lost in the moment; in the memory.

_So why does he need Nadya?_

“When the time came for me to part with it I was reluctant. But it was for the best given the circumstances. For centuries come and gone I had conquered armies, laid waste to entire lands and cities — and yet even I am unable to bend nature to my whim.”

His words lull her in their own strange way like the low, rasping drag of a violin. The first time she feels a tickle at her nose Nadya brushes it aside — it’s an old castle, dust isn’t any surprise. But the second, the third? Nadya can’t help but drag her knuckles over her cheek.

She pulls her hand back and the skin is stained a smeared grey. Darker than Gaius’ pallor across the table. And it burns.

_Ash._

Nadya remembers the nausea starting to churn in her belly all too well but that isn’t exactly a good thing. She almost jumps out of her skin when Jameson is suddenly at her side pouring a glass of water from a clear pitcher — didn’t even realize how parched she was until she snatches it forward and practically out of the scholar’s hands for long, deep drinks.

“Beautiful…” Gaius breathes; watching Nadya in awe — even when she chokes on the last gulp. “You can feel it, can’t you; you know exactly of what I speak.”

With anyone else — even Kamilah, even Valdas — she could at least try her best to avoid this awful feeling by keeping her hands to herself. But Gaius is _all the way over there,_ and Nadya is _all the way over here,_ and it doesn’t. matter. one. bit. She feels the influence of him — _of his memories_ — reaching out to her from the other side of the room.

Nadya takes a burning breath and the answer finds itself somewhere between them.

_“Vesuvius.”_

Gaius confirms with a nod; “I could not risk my amulet falling prey to anything — even that which was beyond my control. So I entrusted it to my firstborn and tasked him with its protection.”

“Hold on — _‘him?’”_ This whole time Nadya’s been under the impression that Kamilah was the first person Gaius Turned. Or that’s what her visions— _his memories_ —had made her assume.

_But who was the only person she knew of that was older than Kamilah?_

She looks to her right and Valdas nods without a word, chin resting on hands clasped in front of him.

_“You?”_

“My first mistake,” answers Gaius for him — contempt for the man beside him dripping foul between his teeth, “and regrettably not my last. As I had given it to mine, so too did Valdemaras give the amulet to _his_ firstborn. And we all know how _that_ ended.”

Neither of the Trinity will look at her; at Gaius either. No longer with their heads held high; like his disapproval of them is a real, tangible thing forcing their heads down, eyes down, and demands of them to feel nothing but shame.

Jameson refills her water slowly. Nadya drinks because if she does then she can’t open her big mouth.

“Thus the task falls unto you, my little Bloodkeeper, to remember where the cur _misplaced_ my amulet.”

He says it like it’s so simple; like flipping through the pages of a book she ought to know well. But not only has Nadya never even _heard_ of that metaphorical book — it’s in a whole other freakin’ _language._

And she has a feeling Gaius isn’t the kind of guy to take excuses in stride. So — she stalls.

“And what are you going to give me in return?”

Gaius scoffs but easily grins around it. “I beg your pardon?”

“You heard me,” _though judging by the state of decomposition on his ears…_ “I have something you want,” _or at least that’s what_ you _think,_ “so what do I get out of it?”

“You get to live.”

“Not good enough.”

Isseya’s lips twitch — the barest hint of amusement that Gaius misses in his incredulity.

“Is that so? Here I was under the impression mortals held their lives in higher value.”

“Well you’re not the first vampire to threaten me. Actually, that was Kamilah. Heck, you aren’t even in the top three. So I’ve gotten used to it. And besides…” Nadya pushes her glasses up her nose until it hurts. “If you kill me then you don’t get what you want anyway.”

In the silence that follows Nadya’s thoughts dissolve into a whirling chaos; desperate to think of her next move. She could demand that Gaius let her go — but that didn’t help her much. She could demand that _and_ that she’s brought back to Manhattan, to Adrian and Kamilah, safe and sound. But the thought of him anywhere _near_ them just makes her queasy. He kept them out of this — what would they think of her if she were the one to bring them in?

The longer she’s left to think the more incredulous Nadya’s _‘conditions’_ become, though, so it’s almost a relief when Gaius inclines his head in a subtle nod.

 _Almost_ because he’s smiling and so far nothing— _nothing_ —good happens when he smiles.

“I can see why my Queen has taken to you so.” Gaius says darkly, somehow darker than all the darkness he’s been hurling out already and it makes Nadya’s blood curdle in her veins. “She always preferred a certain recklessness in her mortals. Not to mention how surprisingly refreshing it is to meet such resistance for so long. But understand well — it never lasts.”

He raises a hand and Nadya’s body flinches on instinct, eyes squeezing shut waiting for a blow that doesn’t come.

Instead, Gaius snaps. “Get on with it.”

And she can’t move. She can’t move. _Why can’t she move?_

Fingertips brush feather-light at her temples.

_Jameson._

One touch and Nadya can already feel the headache starting to build; storm clouds gathering on fast-forward in her head and everything is growing fuzzy at the edges of her eyes. The same kind of reaching, probing curiosity the psychic vampire had used back at Adrian’s trial but comparing the two is the difference between water and acid.

He’s killing her. _Oh god he’s killing her._ Burning her up from the inside out and without the mercy to let her even so much as scream while she’s forced to endure it.

Isseya on her left, Valdas on her right. A not-unfounded pity in their eyes watching but not making any move to help her as Nadya struggles, tenses her muscles until she’s shaking in her own skin but it’s all in vain — she still doesn’t move.

 _Help her,_ because it isn’t Nadya who owns her thoughts anymore; they belong to Jameson. _Help her please help her help her helpher—_

They don’t. 

“I would have thought all of this —” Gaius’ voice blends into the pain; makes them synonymous with each other, “— would have explained things as they are, crystal clear. You are valuable to me as an object is valuable, Nadya. But objects do not dictate who owns them, nor make _conditions_ upon their use. They are but objects; used as the owner sees fit.”

Behind her, Jameson’s whisper roars over the pain that can’t be anything other than her brain trying to punch its way from her skull. 

“Remarkable — a vast improvement from when last I walked these paths…”

_Get out get out getout!_

“Valdemaras tells me she’s encountered these particular memories before. Does that make your task easier?”

“Yes, Master.”

“Then _find what I need,_ and be quick about it.”

“If he isn’t cautious… she may burn out.” And even though Valdas sounds sympathetic she knows he’s anything but — this is _all his fault._ What she wouldn’t give to tell him to _shove it._ “Or the memory may be… incomplete.”

Nadya blinks, feels tears clinging to her lashes heavy and the warm trails they leave down her cheeks. But she can’t see. Not black or white, not the dining room or whatever Jameson digs for in her mind.

She just sees _agony._

There’s a _clap_ — the distinct sound of flesh on flesh. What might be a choked noise from where Isseya was sitting.

“Question me again, Valdemaras, and you will be mourning two-fold.”

“… Forgive me, my King.”

“If you earn it.”

“I feel it,” cries Jameson with glee, “I believe I’ve found the Amulet of Nero, Master. Strange… how she resists me still. As though she’s pulling the memory just out of reach.”

Nadya doesn’t have to see Gaius to feel the weight of his glare.

_“Then dig deeper.”_

Then she sees nothing; nothing at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I spent a lot of time transcribing this scene to make sure I don’t miss out on including any of the important plot nuances and... they never explain anything about the Amulet of Nero and its contents?? Which is kind of annoying. So I hope the backstory is at least a little believable! Comments and critique would be fabulous. Thank you for reading!


	5. The Bloodkeeper

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gaius is free. Jameson is a traitor. Kamilah is vengeful. And Nadya is a Bloodkeeper.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **chapter content warnings:** language, dissociation

_“He’s back.”_   


Part of her is angry they don’t believe her at first. But when Nadya puts herself in their shoes — _and she can now, like changing coats or doing something different with her hair, the ease of it frightens her_ — she isn’t entirely certain she wouldn’t react the same way. Which was easier to trust; the word of a fragile girl one loud noise away from a post-traumatic breakdown, or their own memories?

Only now they’re _her_ memories, too.

So it makes sense when they go to check. Kamilah and Adrian leaving the penthouse so quickly they may as well have jumped from the roof. It’s hard but she tries not to take it personally. It’s not like they’re _avoiding_ Nadya. This is important. This is life or death.

This is survival or slaughter.

They aren’t stupid enough to leave her on her own again, though. Nadya’s burned all those bridges — and herself in the process. Lily comforts her because she’s scared, because Lily knows she’s scared, but comfort, in this case, is another word for _‘keeps her under constant surveillance.’_

“Did you know being unconscious isn’t the same as sleeping?”

Lily looks down at her strangely. But keeps Nadya close, tucked under her arm with a grip that’s meant to ground her but also makes her feel kind of grounded? “Weird talk to fill the silence.”

“The opposite, actually.”

“What d’you mean?”

 _What_ does _she mean?_ Or how best can she describe the noise all around her; all the voices with their cheers and screams and laughter and weeping? Lily’s the vampire — she’s supposed to be the one with the super hearing.

Well… technically she is. Since all of the things Nadya hears aren’t really there. They already happened a long time ago.

She waits too long to respond, gets lost in her own (not really) thoughts. So Lily squeezes her arm — unknowingly right on top of a not-yet-bloomed bruise from her tussle with the Trinity. And the pain anchors her to the present. _Careful,_ some part of her warns, _don’t make a habit of it._

“Nadi’.”

“I think that’s been my problem, lately,” she continues; not like it explains anything, “I’ve spent too much time hoping to just… knock out, y’know?”

“No… I don’t.”

“How did I get here?”

Lily tenses with worry and holds Nadya back at arms’ length. She probably hopes that will keep her from knowing how truly and utterly _freaked out_ her best friend is. It doesn’t.

“You’re scaring me, Nadya.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t — it’s not something to _apologize for._ But… can you just… try to explain?”

She nods. She tries.

“How did I get back to Kamilah’s?” Eyes quickly roaming over the familiar furniture, doorways, displayed antiques she’s come to know so well; “I don’t remember.”

Lily inhales deep; still doesn’t quite shake such human habits as breathing. “Adrian brought you here, sweetie. You don’t remember that?”

“Where did Adrian find me?”

“In his office…” And the silence is imploring, desperate despite the calmness of her. So Lily keeps going; “You were missing for three whole days. I couldn’t track your phone, you weren’t on any camera. We tore the city up and down trying to find you but it was like… like you’d vanished into thin air.

“Then you were just _back._ I pinged your phone at Raines Corp. and you were there sleeping on his couch like you’d pulled an all-nighter or something. None of it made sense — still doesn’t, mind you. But I’m the one who should be asking _you_ about all this. Not the other way around.”

Nadya’s face scrunches up while she listens; and tries to remember. Anything; a drive, a train ride, walking on her own two feet. Only there’s nothing to remember because it’s gone; swept clean. Like someone took an eraser to the white board of her life and just wiped it carelessly across. Half-words and fractured sentences left in the wake.

Something falls into her eye and it stings — makes Nadya recoil and Lily hold her tighter because Kamilah probably warned her about Nadya being a danger to herself but when are they going to understand she’s a danger to everyone else, too?

It’s sweat, she realizes in the most anticlimactic fashion. A shower would be nice — but Nadya highly doubts she’s allowed to do such an _‘alone’_ activity right now. As it is she practically has to pry her best friend’s hand away so she can give herself some space. One of them still _needs_ breathing room, after all.

“Why aren’t you asking me, then? About… _all this.”_

The young vampire chews her bottom lip.

“Figured we should probably wait until Adrian and Kamilah get back. You remember where they went, right?”

 _Oh, she remembers._ She remembers that particular change of atmosphere with a clarity as striking as it is opposite of the rest of her muddled thoughts.

“I just wanna sleep, Lil’.” Nadya sighs; and the fragility of it scares her. Forces her to face the reality that she didn’t know she could be so… broken.

“So sleep. They could be gone for hours.” Lily means well — Nadya knows that. But there’s absolutely _no freakin’ way_ that’s happening.

Lily kicks off her boots and starts to stretch out along the length of the couch. Nadya’s body agrees; an instinct forged in friendship’s fire, and scoots herself down until they’re in an all-too-familiar position. Head-meets-toes. A little uneasy and a lot cramped, and it’s no sleeping bag slumber party. Yet somehow it’s the exact balance of physical comfort and personal space she needs. Even if Lily’s ankle bumps against her temple a few times.

They both close their eyes. Neither one sleeps.

Which is just as well, because when the Council members return to the penthouse they do so with voices raised and only rising higher.

The door slams shut with a _THUD._ Too loud for Nadya and Lily _not_ to sit up far too alert to have been asleep. They know it — but don’t get the time to mention it before the fight is brought to them.

“He’s _your Clan,_ Kamilah! You’re telling me you never suspected a thing?!”

“You were victim to Jameson’s psychic interference just as much as I!”

Adrian scoffs at the excuse. “Why didn’t you have any safeguards in place?”

“He was bound in blessed iron and witchfire! I seem to recall you _agreeing with me_ that further measures were unnecessary!”

“You spent more time with him than anyone. You really didn’t consider he might have a way out?”

Kamilah rounds on Adrian in a whirl of dark hair and darker eyes. Her hand hovers just shy of his throat, nails like claws so familiar with that particular form of violence but _not Adrian, never Adrian_ so she stays her wrath. For now.

“Watch what you find yourself implying, Adrian.” She snarls.

And he does — his frustration falters in the set of his brow before coming back in a different way. “You know I don’t mean _that._ I could never. I just…”

“Like I’ve been saying since we left —” Jax doesn’t have to shout to be heard over them; the growl deep-set in his curled upper lip is more than enough, “— neither of you are thinking straight. Yelling louder doesn’t make either one of you _more right._ On the contrary — you’re both very _very_ much at fault.”

He stares them down; their bond, their years and experience trying to push him into submission but Jax doesn’t let it happen. He stands resolute and damn the rest.

“I take it the vampire Don Corleone wasn’t safe and sound where you left him last, huh?” asks Lily, and if she hoped to serve as a human (you get the point) crowbar intent on prying them apart… well its the thought that counts.

Even Adrian looks at her with a strangely scolding reproach. “I know you mean well, Lily, but if you fully understood the seriousness of the situation, you’d know now isn’t the time for jokes.”

“Yeah, well, maybe if you guys would share with the class instead of storming off I’d _understand the seriousness of the situation.”_

Nadya reaches out a hand to Lily’s arm; tries to stop her before she says something that actually does some damage. Her best friend gives her a look of _“what, you know I’m right,”_ but it’s not about who is right and who is wrong.

Not against him.

She chances a look to Kamilah, oddly silent compared to moments ago. And just as she feared — Kamilah’s looking right back at her. Surveying her; trying to find something _wrong_ with her. If only Nadya could express just how much of the woman’s self-doubt she feels as her own.

“He wasn’t there, was he. Gaius wasn’t in the Onyx Sarcophagus.” It’s not a question because she knows the answer. After all, it kidnapped her and fed her fancy wine and food and split her skull in two with a psychic jackhammer.

Kamilah purses her lips. “No. And you knew we would not find him.”

“I… yes. I knew.”

At Kamilah’s side, Adrian runs his hand over his face. Paler than she’s ever seen him, even when he was starving, beaten, and facing the executioner’s sword… or sunrise.

“How do you even _know_ about him, Nadya,” desperation bleeding through his voice, “let alone where he… where we…”

All that he’s feeling and Nadya sees that he’s still holding himself back. Like if he feels it, or lets himself feel all of it, that makes everything worse. Somehow accepting those emotions makes everything Adrian’s fault.

But it’s not. _It’s not your fault Adrian, it’s not._

“He showed me. He… he led me to it.”

“Who? Jameson?”

Kamilah scoffs. “Don’t be such a fool, Adrian. You know very well who.”

“But that _shouldn’t have been possible.”_

“What does _that_ matter?” Jax kicks off from the wall and braces against the back of the couch. “It happened. Can’t change it. The only thing looking back at the past is good for is figuring out your mistakes so you don’t repeat them.”

“We didn’t make any mistakes.”

“Yes, we did.”

All eyes on Kamilah as she raises herself to a height Nadya didn’t know she was hiding. It’s a stature — a kind of weight on her shoulders she’s so far only seen worn by the Trinity. _Two thousand years_ accepted and owned in one fluid motion.

She’s terrifying, and she’s beautiful, and she’s… she’s Kamilah.

“We underestimated him. _I_ underestimated him. We allowed ourselves to believe Gaius could be chained and held prisoner. That he would accept the punishment we had agreed upon; that he should be forced to stare into the abyss of eternity alone, in the dark, and thought that he may face his actions and understand the consequences.”

She turns to Adrian vulnerable; raw in a way she can’t quite control. She carries the weight of her years but not without struggle. “Our mistakes were not physical, Adrian. But the day we took our victory and believed the matter put to rest with him was the day we blinded ourselves to the truth. Because… it was easier that way.

“We should have killed him.”

The look in his eyes — he agrees even if he won’t say it out loud. A gathering storm of guilt and responsibility and taking the consequences on his shoulders and seeing the both of them like that… it breaks her heart in a way Nadya didn’t even know could be felt. Until now.

“Fine,” he spits out the word in a bitter pill, “but none of that explains how Nadya is involved.”

Nadya hopes her smile is a reassuring one — but something tells her she’s too exhausted and it just looks weary. The way his face falls only hits it home. “I thought the same thing. Until he explained it to me.”

“He _what?”_

She can feel his panic itching under her skin like an ugly sweater she can’t pull over her head. Kamilah’s, too, though she hides it better and takes a knee in front of Nadya where she sits. She rests a cool palm on her thigh; tries and succeeds to keep the tsunami of emotions she’s feeling out of her face but Nadya doesn’t need to see them to feel them there.

“Nadya,” she rasps, _“what_ did he explain?”

“My visions.”

“How did he know —” But the question dies on her lips; what’s the use in asking when they both know the answer?

_He’s Gaius._

“Start from the beginning.”

It’s not a request.

* * *

“You know, _Bloodkeeper_ sounds like an epic R-P-G title.”

Though the moment she says it Lily looks over way out of the corner of her eye — like she isn’t sure if it’s okay to be making light of the whole business just yet.

Nadya’s smile is weak, but there. “I wish. Then I could return it and get my money back.”

“Store credit and you know it.”

She shrugs in a _touché_ kind of way; looks back to Kamilah in hopes she might say _something, anything_ — even if it’s just to scold them for not _“taking things seriously.”_

But the vampiress is as silent as she has been from the moment Nadya began recounting the events of… well, a couple nights ago now.

And saying nothing is sucky sure — but that Kamilah won’t even meet Nadya’s eyes is what really punches her in the gut.

Suddenly Adrian leans forward in his chair, elbows-on-knees, and buries his face in his hands.

“Adrian…?” She calls hesitantly — wanting _so badly_ to go over there and comfort him. But if he rejected her now Nadya isn’t so sure she’d survive it. Not in one piece.

Kamilah distracts her with a touch. “Do you remember where you were taken?”

She has to dig… really deep and down and she has a feeling she shouldn’t remember where but it was too terrible a betrayal not to find the pain of it lingering in her chest.

“Marcel’s. I—I recognized the gardens. But I didn’t see him — maybe he…” And what kind of a world are they living in now where the idea of Marcel being held captive is a better one than him being complicit?

Any hope is dashed, though, when Kamilah shakes her head. “No; while I’m saddened to hear it I can’t say it surprises me. Marcel adored Gaius, and I think he held a soft spot for the boy as well. Enough that he valued Marcel’s innocence and kept him from knowing the more gruesome aspects of his plans. It took him many years to forgive Adrian and I for our turning against him.”

Jax’s face twists in disgust. “This kid, what, _wanted_ Gaius’ crazy plan to happen?”

“He wished for a world where we no longer had to hide,” Kamilah replies in measure, “and I will not begrudge him that. But I have to hope the glamour of his return will soon fade and Marcel will… make the right choice.”

 _Glamour._ Against her will, when Nadya inhales she smells death and rot. Behind her closed eyelids she can still see his opaque eyes…

“And you really believe all of this, Nadya?” asks Jax instead; he’s gotten good at changing the subject when they all know it’ll end in argument. Hanging her head counts as a nod, right?

“I do.”

“Even knowing how crazy manipulative this guy apparently is.”

“He could explain everything.”

Jax scoffs. “Yeah, and that’s wrapped up a little too neat and tidy for me.”

“While skepticism is a healthy trait to have when Gaius is involved, Matsuo, he gains nothing from lying.” Kamilah stands so suddenly Nadya gets secondhand vertigo. “As it is — I can confirm his claims.”

They all watch as she practically vanishes — gone in one blink and back in the next. She returns clutching a small book bound in old leather greyed and sagging with age. Nadya can see the echoes of its former splendor in her mind’s eye. Something from the library in her office, probably.

Kamilah flips hastily through the worn parchment pages; finds something near the end that makes her expression fall the barest flicker. “The myth of the Bloodkeeper.”

Part of Nadya wants to wrench the book from her hands. Another wants to chuck it from the building roof. “Please tell me that’s some kind of encyclopedia.”

“Nothing so concrete.”

Beside her, Lily’s practically jumping out of her own body. “Lore loot… that’s some high-level shit.”

“Lil’.”

“Actually, given I’m understanding the context correctly, she’s nearly accurate.” Which makes Lily pound her fist into the air and hold it out to Kamilah — but hell hasn’t frozen over just yet.

“For the first thousand years or so, Gaius kept me close at hand. Only once did I leave his side and it was at his own behest. He tasked me to find a book; a journal of some sort. With the scarcest of leads I scoured the vast city of _Pataliputra_ for a decade. Until I found it coveted by an old madwoman.”

Nadya shivers against a breeze that isn’t there.

“And?”

“And she knew who I was. Never had we so much as toed the Empire’s borders and she _knew me._ My name, my birthplace, my deeds… ones no mortal could have shared — ones with no survivors.”

Kamilah goes eerily silent; lost in her own memory. God forbid Nadya be lost in it too. “Kamilah.”

Twice she blinks, lets her eyes lose their glaze of the past. “I told him I had found the book, and with a few pages to prove it’s existence. As well as a pile of ashes.”

Adrian snaps to attention and the movement makes Nadya jump. He’d been so quiet, so still… more a grave than a man.

“You _lied_ to Gaius?”

“It was my small act of youthful rebellion.”

“I just can’t believe he bought it.”

“You’d be surprised just how much trust he had in me. Even in the beginning.”

Lily raises her hand but doesn’t wait to get called on. “Uhm, can we get back to the mad old lady trope?”

Only she doesn’t have to. Nadya reaches out for the journal and when Kamilah lays it gently in her open palm it feels… familiar. Like it’s been in her hand before — each word from her own thoughts onto the page.

“She was a Bloodkeeper.”

Kamilah nods. The hairs on the back of Nadya’s neck stand up; all four vampires watch her flip through thin pages with anticipation. Do they expect her to suddenly pull an _Exorcist_ and start screaming memories in a demonic rage?

“The word is mentioned nearest the end. She describes a relief at naming herself; she feels unburdened by it. And the way she describes learning it is as though it came to her in a… a dream.”

She falters — Nadya doesn’t look away from the entries written in a language she can’t even read. She doesn’t have to.

Kamilah’s never sounded less certain of, well, _anything_ in her life. “I see the signs, now. The mere potential of that knowledge was… I wanted to forget it, Nadya. I did — even in your hour of need.”

There’s not much use in trying to read it; when Nadya hands Kamilah back the book she makes a point of touching the back of her hand. “I believe you. You don’t need to be sorry.”

“I promised you I would find a way to ease your suffering.”

“And you did.” The journal falls abandoned on the rug between them, they might as well be completely alone. In fact Nadya would rather they were. “You did, Kamilah.”

“A- _hem—”_ Coughs Jax into his fist with all the tact of, well, Nadya. “Let’s skip to the part where he let you go. Anyone else find that interesting?”

“He’s right,” Adrian agrees, “Gaius isn’t the type to let go of things— _people_ —he claims belong to him.”

 _He_ is _right._ Nadya knows it too. But when she scrunches up her nose and thinks really _really_ hard? It’s easier to remember her eighth birthday party.

“I can’t remember.”

“Well isn’t that ironic.” Lily teases dryly.

“More like convenient…” Adrian trails off — finds Jax giving him a hard eye.

“What did I say? Too neat and tidy.”

Kamilah reaches out to stroke her fingertips along Nadya’s arm; a caress even while literally holding herself at arms’ length. “Jameson’s doing, I’m sure.”

_Jameson._

“Nadya?”

She looks down to see she’s gone rigid under the woman’s touch. Not that she relaxes. The Council members had been arguing about Jameson when they returned. And Valdas… hadn’t Valdas said he was the one who had messed with her head — _influenced her,_ he’d called it.

“He took it.”

“Took what?”

Jameson who deceived them all. Jameson who forced her to take on memories she wasn’t ready for. Jameson who poured the wine and served the dinner and all the while loathed that he didn’t have a seat at the table.

“My head… he… he…”

_Jameson who offered her water._

Before he took hold of her head and dug psychic spears into her mind over and over until he found what he was looking for.

What Gaius was looking for.

Nadya groans; knocks her glasses aside in her haste to somehow stop the pain. She presses the heels of her palms against her eyes and kind of hopes they’ll pop into her skull to dull the pain.

“Nadya!” comes Adrian’s voice, suddenly too close, and she throws out a hand to try and keep him at a distance. “What — what’s wrong?”

“Give her space, Adrian,” comes Kamilah’s voice, hypocritically closer but far less panicked; instead she’s a cool drink of water through the burning pain where Jameson had singed a hole into her memory.

“Keep going, Nadya. Whatever Jameson has taken is in your power to retrieve.”

Encouraging words from a woman _not_ feeling like her head is a matchstick alight. “N-Not… it’s like a _wound._ It hurts…”

Lily squeezes her shoulder. “Come on, Nadi’. You’re _literally_ the only one who can.”

Blindly Nadya reaches out over her shoulder, grasps at the void with uncertainty, but it doesn’t last long. 

“I’m right here Nadya,” whispers Adrian in her ear, voice thick and unsure but none of that matters because his grip is the exact opposite, “we all are.”

“Even Jax,” Lily chimes in.

“I can support her without the group hug.”

It makes Nadya laugh; a spluttering thing wet with tears and spots in her eyes and everything sharp nipping at her head trying to take a chunk out of her. And somehow in the midst of it all… something _snaps_ back into place.

 _“TheAmuletofNero!”_ The words tumble from Nadya and leave her heaving for breath. Adrian’s disembodied hand holds a glass of water in front of her and she doesn’t hesitate to gulp it down. Could give absolutely one hundred percent less of a care if she spills half of it down her chin — which she does.

She comes up from drowning in the cup, coughs on the water sloshing around in her lungs, and tries again.

“The… The Amulet of Nero. That’s what he wanted. He… he needed to remember where it was hidden.”

“Because he’s, what, going senile in his old age?” Lily asks, rightfully skeptical.

Gasp. “He —” — _gulp, gasp_ — “— he didn’t hide it. Someoneelse… and he didn’tknow…” And just when she thinks she’s got only air in her lungs Nadya’s body throws her into another fit.

Adrian returns with a second glass; before she can take it he holds it out of reach with a warning, “slowly, this time,” and waits until she nods to give it to her. _“‘The Amulet of Nero?’_ I’ve never heard of it.”

Everyone looks at Kamilah for an answer, then. How is it possible that just when she’s certain the woman can’t _possibly_ look any more worried, she manages all too well?

“That’s because Gaius had hidden it away long ago by then. And for good reason.”

Nadya sips her water — with every cool taste the psychic pain receding further and further into nothing. The sight makes Kamilah’s lips quirk upward and brings her hand to the human’s fevered brow. But her eyes are too sad for it to be a smile.

“If Gaius is looking for the Amulet then things are far worse than I imagined.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There’s a lot untouched in the Bloodkeeper lore and I can’t wait to explore that. For now, though, Nadya is the focus. As always, comments and critique would be fabulous. Thank you for reading!
> 
> And stay tuned for another chapter update today!


	6. The Amulet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The hunt is on for the Amulet of Nero. But in the wake of discovering Gaius has been freed, Kamilah is forced to voice her fears while Adrian reveals a few secrets of his own. Maricruz kinda-sorta saves the day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **chapter content warnings:** language, dissociation, hallucinations, mentions of death

_“Our betrayal of Gaius was more than an uprising; more than a simple desire to shift the balances of power. It took an extraordinary amount of conviction and the strength to resist everything that made us who we are._   


_“A vampire’s Maker is their lodestone, and together they are symbiotic in nature. We loved him — I see no point in denying it now that the ties that bind have been severed, and for so long._ We loved him, _so much that the year following our betrayal very nearly killed us in our unwanted grief._

_“If you know of the feeling I speak, then I am truly sorry for your suffering. If you do not — consider yourself lucky in that you will only need to die the once. That’s what it felt like; dying. But for the sake of this I ask that you remember your moment of greatest and most profound grief. And multiply it by the number of stars in the sky.”_

_“Why?”_

_“Because I want you to understand me when I tell you that our devotion to Gaius was infinitesimal compared to how he felt about_ his _Maker; the First Vampire — Rheya.”_

Once Nadya managed to reclaim the memory that Jameson had stolen (she still doesn’t know how, please don’t ask her — eventually they’re going to ask her and what’s a profound way to say _‘IDK’_ worthy of the title _Bloodkeeper)_ it all started to come back to her in cinema-quality high definition. 

But there are still parts of her dinner party from hell that feel more like parts of a dream than something that really happened. Isseya’s makeover montage was one, their startling attention to her dietary needs and wants was most certainly another.

Until she’s left with only one thing that still feels… not-quite. Not-quite real, not-quite imagined. Different than the memories but no… no it happened. Didn’t it?

 _“And I know that everything you do—all the killing, Turning, plotting and kingdoms and thrones… it’s all for her._ Your _Maker… Rheya.”_

Even now, long after Adrian and Lily and Jax have gone from the penthouse with tales of goddesses and betrayals swirling around in their heads, Nadya feels… she feels like she correctly guessed an answer on a multiple choice test. Except instead of four choices there’s about a billion and the one she picked wasn’t even one of the options.

There’s a soft knock on the door but Kamilah doesn’t wait for permission to enter. It’s her place, after all. There’s something strangely comforting about the act; the normalcy of it. Like none of this has happened and they’re still a year backwards trying to understand the oddities of one another.

That was some real prime-time sitcom material right there.

But if things were normal Kamilah wouldn’t be hovering in the doorway with an uncharacteristic uncertainty.

“What’s up,” Nadya sits upright so fast her head goes a bit fuzzy but immediate panic is a valid reaction in these troubled times, “is everything okay? Oh god — is _he_ here?”

The woman quirks a perfect brow before realizing the terrifying evil villain mastermind of which she speaks. “No, Nadya. And if he were… I would not let him take you.”

In a world of unbelievable things, Nadya has no trouble believing Kamilah means that.

And she feels Kamilah’s eyes on her for a long moment before they speak again.

“Why are you in here?”

 _That’s a good question._ Especially since habit started dragging her tired feet to Kamilah’s bedroom after Lily’s sixth one-last-hug. No, Nadya had changed her course somewhere in the middle of the hall and… now she’s here.

“I guess… I wanted to give you some space.”

Kamilah manages to make even incredulity look graceful. “What do you possibly mean by that?”

 _Stop asking questions I don’t have answers to._ “Well… you’re still mad at me.”

“I believe I’m due a fair bit more credit than that.”

“That wasn’t a question, Kamilah.” Not when she can feel it. Not when it stings against her skin like ice.

Kamilah tilts her head to the side slightly. “I did not assume it was. But I would like to think my feelings have more depth and complexity than something as simple as _‘anger,’_ especially when it comes to you.”

And Nadya’s pretty sure there’s an unspoken confession there; the closest they’ve ever come to that kind of thing. It makes the hairs on the back of her neck stand alert — a different kind of fear.

Fear at having something. And fear of losing it.

“I can be frustrated at your recklessness and still desire your company,” she continues; reaches out a hand that Nadya doesn’t even hesitate to take. Not now, not ever probably.

With no resistance at all Kamilah leads Nadya to the other end of the penthouse; to the bedroom that’s still Kamilah’s in name but, not unlike every other space up here, Nadya has come to think of as hers, too. _Theirs,_ even.

_What a doozy of a thought._

She’s led across the bedroom to the closet; each step Kamilah takes is sure and certain and Nadya trusts her for it. Trusts her when familiar fingers run over her skin like silk and start to undress her.

Her shirt is tugged over her head. At her back Nadya feels Kamilah’s lips press like a whisper against her bare shoulder. “May I admit a terrible secret to you, Nadya?”

She wants to turn, to take every sharp edge of the woman in both palms and smooth them out until neither of them are hurting.

“You can tell me anything. You know that.”

Another kiss to her throat, to her cheek, to her temple.

“Strange of you to say it aloud… stranger still that I cannot find myself in disagreement.”

“Kamilah…”

And she realizes shortly after why the vampire has them pressed together but keeps herself almost dutifully out of Nadya’s sight. _Really all she had to do was take off Nadya’s glasses,_ but the tension is too thick even for her particular brand of humor to cut through.

“I was afraid.”

It’s an admission that rocks Nadya to her core — and definitely makes the arms wrapped slender around her waist to undo the button of her jeans a tad less sexy.

_What is she supposed to say to that?_

Thankfully Kamilah doesn’t give her the chance to actually give it a thought. Or worse — say the wrong thing on impulse. “And fear… fear is _not_ a complex emotion; not for me. You cannot find a depth in something you have not felt in… in many years.”

Her hands rest a chilly weight on Nadya’s hips. She covers them with her own slowly, gently — then all at once.

“You were afraid when Adrian was in danger.”

_Like she’s trying to rationalize the most irrational emotion there is._

“I was, yes,” — there’s a quick inhale in Nadya’s ear — “but I think we both know that was a different kind of fear.”

 _Do we?_ “O—Oh.”

Nadya turns in the woman’s arms — she gives Kamilah ample time to force her back but she just _doesn’t._ Reminds Nadya of the statue of the woman who looked like Kamilah back on the roof over their very heads months ago.

She cups Kamilah’s cheek and feels the warmth leeched from her body. _Good,_ she thinks, _take that and more — take everything I can offer._

“I…” — _was scared too, terrified, tragically terrified_ — “I kept hoping you’d… you’d come for me.”

“Nothing of this earth would have stopped me.”

“But —”

“But _he_ is not of this earth. Not in a way that would have allowed me to keep you safe.”

Nadya knows that — really she does. She’s not bitter or mad or anything like it. It’s just that if she doesn’t get it out she might actually explode from how it makes her feel.

“I will not fail you again.”

“You didn’t _fail me,_ Kamilah.”

“It is a miracle that you were returned. That you were not…”

And someone get out a camera, tape recorder, _something;_ because words like these don’t come from a person with Nadya’s levels of anxiety often— 

“But I was. Don’t think about what didn’t happen. I’m here, Kamilah. _I’m right here.”_

_I’m right here. I’ve got you._

Three words — three words more. Words that have followed them through practically everything and that means more than either of them could express. Nadya’s a small person with a big heart and Kamilah… she’s kept her own heart locked away for so long sometimes Nadya worries she thinks she’s lost the key.

She hasn’t. _God, she hasn’t._

“I’m right here,” she repeats; feels her voice catch and cling to the words like barbed wire, “I’m right here, okay?”

Hands tighten on her hips and Nadya closes her eyes before the dizziness overtakes her. The world tugged out from under her feet and the firm resistance of Kamilah’s mattress on her back and the solid form of the woman on top of her; knees on either side of her pinning her down, prone; exposed.

Vulnerable in a way she is always vulnerable to Kamilah. In a way that completely brushes aside her mortality and digs deeper into her until she’s _Nadya;_ no last name, no history, no life outside of right here right now.

Kamilah takes her lips; takes her words, her very breath. She takes everything Nadya is willing to give.

And, as seconds tick by like hours — like eternities — as Kamilah tugs away layers and inhibitions and defies the definition of _impossible_ to expose her all the more, she takes not only _everything_ but maybe just a little bit more.

“Kam—il—” 

She gasps, mouth slack and syllables far beyond her now. Can’t focus on anything more than the timeless struggle between not wanting to hurt Kamilah and not wanting to let go of the dark brown waves she knots in her fingers with every deft movement of her skilled tongue.

 _“I rather enjoy you this way,”_ Kamilah had said; exactly five minutes and twenty-two seconds after the first time and with every word curled in her smirking lips shiny with slick, _“the woman never without something to say rendered speechless.”_

And Nadya had denied that (it had taken her… a _while_ to muster the energy to do so, but she did); insisted she didn’t _always_ have something to say. Which kind of proved Kamilah’s point.

So this time around, when she feels the long swipe of Kamilah’s tongue; feels her lips close around her clit hungry and indulgent, Nadya promises not to deny it one single bit.

* * *

Nadya returns from the lunch cart downstairs with their sandwich boxes in hand. “Trade?”

“Trade,” replies Adrian. He barely looks up from his report while she switches their folders and leaves his turkey-no-mustard on top.

She settles back in on his office couch — heels toed off and stocking-clad feet tucked under her skirt. In order to make sure she doesn’t associate the spot permanently with bad memories Nadya’s all but forced herself into his space. All she needs is her phone charger close at hand and it’ll be her own little nest.

Thankfully, Adrian doesn’t mind.

“Hey,” she thumbs through the pages held together with a well-worn clip, “I’m missing one.”

“Mmm.”

“Adrian.”

“Yes, thank you.”

If they were any ordinary secretary and boss, it isn’t unreasonable to assume she would get fired for hurling her pink highlighter at his head with all her might. But they aren’t ordinary, Adrian isn’t ordinary — he catches it without so much as a twitching muscle but it’s enough to jostle him from his stupor.

He looks down at the marker as if he has no idea where it came from.

“Oh, Nadya,” he blinks in surprise, “when did you get back?”

“Just a second ago. I’m missing a page.”

“Of what?”

She holds up the folder with a _duh_ sort of look on her face; Adrian quickly ruffles around the sea of papers in front of him before he plucks the right sheet out and delivers it in apology.

Nadya takes it because there’s no way she’s wasting time. But that doesn’t mean she doesn’t grab his arm before he can leave.

“You okay?”

He chuckles dryly. “I should be asking _you_ that.”

“I’m not the one acting like a zombie.”

The look Adrian gives her is an admonishing one but Nadya isn’t exactly taking it back. “My apologies.” He’s forgiven, of course, but she _shoos_ him back to his desk anyway.

Nadya slides the printed photocopy in with the rest and starts at the page he had left off on… two paragraphs down on page one. _Awesome._

Okay, maybe she’s allowed a _teeny_ little break to eat half of her sandwich.

But the silent chewing is just too uncomfortable.

“Wanna talk about what’s on your mind?” Nadya asks; because there’s no harm in trying even if she already knows the answer.

And he doesn’t disappoint. “No, thank you.”

It’s an unintended positive that Adrian jumps back to work to avoid being asked to talk for a second time. He takes the R&D file out from under his sandwich with renewed interest — he even appropriates her highlighter for added effect.

Nadya has stopped lying to herself. Everything is _not_ okay, not by a long shot. There’s an evil madman who once called himself King of the Vampires running around New York (at the least, and she really doesn’t want to think about where else he could have gotten to by now) — there is absolutely no universe in which _that_ is okay.

They just have to hope they find this Amulet of Nero before he does. Not that karma is making it easy on them. Things would go a lot faster if Nadya could remember the specific vampire-memory Jameson had taken from her but no amount of Kamilah-led meditation, Adrian-supervised brain scans, or Lily-brewed “magic tea” has done the trick so far… so she’s kind of given up on that front.

“Here’s something,” she says what feels like five hours later — a quick look at the clock is (for the first time) surprisingly accurate at four and a half, “the article says here there was an issue in 1875 where the British Museum, who claimed to have the Amulet on display, was actually showing a forgery. 

“Apparently they _had_ the real deal but the day before the exhibit was set to open to the public it was stolen. They covered it up to protect the museum’s reputation.”

It’s the first real smile Nadya’s seen from Adrian all week. “That’s really good, Nadya. Add it to the timeline?”

“All over it.” She scribbles _‘London, 1875’_ onto a sticky note and hops up and over to the far office wall to add it to the rest of their research. All the way from _‘Rome, 64 AD’_ to the newest addition of London. 

She’d be able to have a much more comprehensive collection of information and formulated theories if Adrian let her bring up one of the giant display whiteboards from the conference rooms downstairs, but she just has to make due with what she’s got.

Nadya takes a step back to take their combined work in fully. Somehow the high of finding a clue or a decent lead never really lasts. Somehow she’s always reminded of the fact that Gaius is probably ten steps ahead and counting.

“Hey, Adrian?”

He looks up from their other project — the actual work that has to be done at their actual place of business — because he’s a quick study. That or he really doesn’t want to be catching highlighters all night.

Nadya looks back to him and can’t help the worry she lets slip through the cracks.

“Do you think the Amulet _really_ has the blood of the First Vampire inside of it?”

Because she hadn’t, not at first. But Kamilah isn’t the kind of person to make jokes on a good day and doubtful she’d start now. Gaius’ most treasured possession, hidden away so well even the owner himself couldn’t find it.

Not the Amulet itself but what it held. A giant, gaudy antique locket — and inside; a vial of blood that Gaius had told Kamilah belonged to his Maker; the First Vampire. Something he had intended to keep with the hopes of one day finding a way to resurrect her, Kamilah had said.

 _“Could that be such a bad thing?”_ Jax had asked. _“Maybe she’d put him in his place.”_

Kamilah didn’t agree though. _“Doubtful — for two thousand years I followed Gaius’ every move and enacted his every plan. Always, he said, in Rheya’s name. If his every atrocity was done on her behalf I don’t think anything good could come of bringing her unto this world again.”_

Adrian leans back in his chair and it creaks with the effort. “Honestly… I don’t know. I wish I could give you a more concrete answer, but…”

“No, no I—I know.”

“Regardless of what you or I believe, though, Gaius knows there’s something powerful inside of it. Something worth… worth putting you through months of agony for.”

Nadya has a feeling there’s more to what he wants to say but, like every time Adrian even tries to start talking about his Maker or what Jameson had done to her, he gets lost in his thoughts and it goes unspoken.

And, like every time, the inevitable apologies are the next thing he says instead.

“I can’t begin to tell you how sorry —”

“You have nothing to be sorry for,” interrupts Nadya; a little more clipped than she’d like, “how many times do I have to tell you?”

But she may as well be talking to a brick wall with _‘ADRIAN’_ written on it in chalk.

“I do though, don’t you get it?”

“Obviously I don’t.”

“It was _my_ decision to punish Gaius instead of kill him. Lester, Priya, hell even _Vega_ wanted him killed for real. They thought even the smallest chance of him escaping could spell the end of us all. If I had chosen not to try and teach him a lesson…”

Nadya can’t really believe what she’s hearing. “You showed him mercy, Adrian.”

“Yeah,” he scoffs, “I showed mercy to a merciless tyrant.”

“You showed that you were the better man.”

“I showed weakness.”

 _“No,”_ nope, no way she’s doing this nu-uh, “being merciful is _not_ weakness. Who the heck am I even _talking_ to right now?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Well it can’t be Adrian Raines! It sure doesn’t sound like him.” _In fact, it sounds like…_

Nadya refuses to let her thoughts get that dark, though.

“This isn’t a matter of opinion.” Adrian stands — suddenly he can’t look Nadya in the eye so he goes to the next best distraction. Even with his hands in his pockets though Nadya can see in his reflection of the window glass that they’re balled up into fists. His teeth are grit and she prays—actually prays—that the red she sees in his eyes is just some jet lights passing by.

“If I had been strong enough to kill Gaius the first time, if I had understood that he was beyond lessons and punishment, none of this would be happening. You would be able to come into your Bloodkeeper powers as you needed to — without the pain of being forced into it. You wouldn’t have been kidnapped. Hell—even Vega wouldn’t have had a reason to accuse me of trying to grab for his power. And Lily wouldn’t have —”

He cuts himself off but the damage is done. 

“Lily?”

Adrian only looks guiltier when he turns away from the window like the bookcase holds all the answers to life and the universe. Anything so Nadya doesn’t have to see his face. But she wants to. Now more than ever.

“Finish what you were going to say, Adrian,” she has no idea how that sentence even ends but there’s an anger bubbling up inside her, unbidden; unrestrained, _“‘Lily wouldn’t have’_ what?”

All the frustration and tension leaves Adrian in an exhale; shoulders slumped and he lets his head hang with the weight of the world. He looks more like a man heading to a guillotine. Maybe whatever he has to say is just as awful.

He looks at Nadya with grief, pity — something close. “I was going to tell you.”

Adrian steps forward. Nadya steps back.

“Tell me _what?”_

“I only put the pieces together a few days ago — after we learned Gaius was still alive.”

“I asked about _Lily,_ not _Gaius.”_ Because those two names shouldn’t be in the same sentence. Not without words like _‘kicked’_ and _‘butt’_ between them and all of it in Lily’s favor.

“Nadya…”

“Oh my god — will you just stop stalling?!”

“I’m not —” he pinches the bridge of his nose, “— I thought I was being paranoid at the time. It didn’t add up, we didn’t know Jameson was working with him, Gaius was still locked in the sarcophagus; so I brushed it all aside.”

Nadya presses herself against the wall. A couple of the notes come loose and flutter to the carpet at her shoeless feet. She’s demanded him to finish talking but he hadn’t and now she wants him to shut up — she’ll do anything for him to shut up.

Because words aren’t just _words_ anymore. Stories, thoughts, recollections — they’re all _memories_ when it comes to them; when it comes to _her._ And it’s coming to her and Nadya doesn’t want to know, doesn’t want to _see._

“We know now he’s been playing the long game,” Adrian continues — and Nadya hates him for it, “maybe longer than even we know. And when you put it together it… it makes sense.”

“No—no it doesn’t,” _it,_ like what happened to Lily was as common as anything, “it _doesn’t,_ Adrian. Because Lily was attacked by Vega, or one of Vega’s people. That’s what we decided, remember? Because it made sense. Because he wanted to use me to get to you; to have another case against you for Turning someone without permission. _That’s what we all agreed had happened.”_

But they still didn’t know; not with any certainty. And when everything had finally cooled off and one half of the Council wasn’t actively trying to murder the other, Adrian and Kamilah offered to help find the real culprit. Lily had said no.

It happened, it’s done — she’s moving on because nothing would change whether she knew or didn’t.

 _It happened Adrian,_ Nadya screams in her mind, with her eyes, _it’s done, remember? It’s done!_

If only he was a mind reader.

“Turning can be a trauma. But Lily — she didn’t remember _anything._ It was too convenient. It was as though…”

“… the memory had been taken from her.”

“Yes. Just like he took the memory of the Amulet from you.”

 _I don’t want to see this. Please don’t make me see this._ And she hates them — hates them all. She hates Adrian for keeping this from her. She hates Jameson for doing this to her. She hates Gaius for being the wizard behind the curtain.

_Please don’t make me see this._

The memory may have been taken from Lily but it’s not Lily she’s remembering. It’s not Lily that Nadya sees when her head turns and gazes at her reflection in the mirror on their apartment wall. It’s Jameson who raises Nadya’s hand and pushes up his spectacles and stalks deeper inside to Lily digging around in the medicine cabinet for… for something.

Jameson who smiles his unnervingly calm smile and descends his fangs. Jameson who attacks her neck savage and monstrous and drags her body to the living room for Nadya—the Nadya from before, the one who isn’t scarred by the sight of this just yet—to discover. Who puts two fingers on Lily’s sweating temples as she bleeds out gasping and desperate below him and takes the memory of it all away.

_“Ohmygod—”_

A gut-wrenching sob rips itself from Nadya’s throat; brings her back into her own body and out of the memory of _her best friend being murdered because of her._ Not a guess, not a decision based on the most logical answers — but a real, hard truth she has no choice but to face.

 _Lily was killed because Gaius willed it._ Because Jameson never does anything without Gaius willing it. And he had sat there beside them in the Council Chamber, looked at Lily and _he’d known._

Somewhere in the middle of all of these terrible facts Nadya has fallen to her knees. Hell if she remembers when. But the office carpet burns and Adrian’s suit probably isn’t made for this kind of position but he’s there, he’s holding her close keeping Nadya’s hands pinned at her sides resting his chin at the crown of her head while she sobs until there’s no air left in her lungs to manage it.

“H-How dd-id… how…”

 _“Sssh,”_ Adrian tries to calm her, “I knew it couldn’t have been one of the Clanless because of her girlfriend. There was… a trace of a scent, but I couldn’t follow up. I couldn’t risk wasting the little time she had. It was gone, replaced by Vega and Kamilah by the time I was able to get back there to check.

“That’s why I believed it was him, Nadya. But it just seemed so… you don’t know how terrible it was to watch you grieve like that. All the pain and suffering you went through, the uncertainty of whether or not Lily would survive the Turning… it was _evil._

“It was something Gaius would have done. A way to torture you. Only I didn’t realize he used Jameson to do it.”

He doesn’t need to explain it now — Nadya knows; she’s seen. And she can’t even hold herself up from the pain of it but when she can stand again…

“I’m gonna kill him.”

Adrian tenses around her. “What? No, Nadya, you’re not.”

“Yes—yes I am.” She pulls away to look him in the eyes. “I’m gonna kill Jameson. For attacking Lily and leaving her to die, and for being the reason I had to… that I just…”

“I’m sorry, I am. But you know none of us will let you do something so stupid.”

“Just you wait,” she sniffles; tries to maintain the integrity of her makeup as much as possible while wiping her eyes but that’s pretty much a lost cause, “no one’s seen how stupid I can get.”

“This isn’t you. You’re not like this.”

“Tell that to the Baron’s henchman I killed.” Nadya doesn’t even know why she brings it up; didn’t even know it was something she still thought about. But is she wrong?

“In self defense; in _my_ defense.”

“Yeah… maybe.”

He’s smart and doesn’t try to stop her when Nadya pulls away. She gathers the fallen notes and her composure with them before setting about putting them back in their right order.

Adrian stands and dusts off the knees of his suit. “Nadya…?” he asks, hesitant, but she shrugs off the hand he puts on her shoulder.

Adrian isn’t gonna let this go though, is he? Still standing at her back. Like he wasn’t trying to distance himself before.

Fine. Nadya sniffles; tries to cut the thick wetness from her voice. “How long were you going to keep it a secret? If not from me, then from Lil’?”

“Until I could find some sort of proof — or make him confess.”

“No. No more secrets. Not from me or from anyone; even you.”

Adrian nods. _Yeah, he’d better._ “Do you want to go now?”

“We need to find the Amulet.” _Find the Amulet, find Gaius. Find Gaius, find Jameson._ “Let’s just… get back to work.”

He watches and waits while Nadya settles back into her little nook on his couch. The sight is a relief, and only when she’s back with a cap in her mouth and a folder in hand does he head back to his desk.

* * *

“Yeah, yeah. Yup. Mmmhm. Thanks Am’, you’re a godsend. Oh — you know what I mean!”

The day Nadya learned that Maricruz kept a flip phone for her burner because she was really into the satisfying way you could _snap_ the phone shut was the day a lot of things the former smuggler does started to make sense.

Against the very _vocal_ protests of the springs Maricruz hops up on the couch and swings a leg over Lily’s head to sit perched on the back of it higher than the rest of them. She pulls Lily back close and starts tap-tapping her head like a drum in her victory. Times like this — Nadya can’t help but watch them with a little smile. Lily deserves it; that silliness, that fun in her life. Just as much as she deserves someone who can help her navigate the pitfalls of vampirism with some experience under their belt.

“Hey, hon?” Lily asks without looking up from her laptop screen.

“Hmm, _mi amor?”_

“Why are you playing my head like a bongo?”

“Because your head is a bongo.”

Nadya rolls her eyes with a little laugh. “Because that makes sense.”

Maricruz shrugs and doesn’t let them deter her playing.

“Okay, well are my bongos suddenly justified if I say I know where and when this dumbass Amulet was last seen?”

Lily and Nadya lock eyes from across the apartment. In a beat Nadya leaps into her armchair and Lily snaps her head around so fast there’s a few _cracks_ in her neck. Nadya’s learned to stop questioning some weird vampire things. Most of them to do with the gag-inducing adorableness of the pair.

Lily makes a drum set of her own with her girlfriend’s knees. “Don’t keep us in suspense babe!”

“Yeah babe,” Nadya chimes in with a laugh, “plus I don’t think my little human heart can take any more suspense for the week.”

“Langdon Kavinsky.”

Crickets. No, really — the landlord refuses to do anything about the crickets.

“Gesundheit?” is about all Nadya’s got. Thankfully Lily already has her laptop dragged forward and is hammering away at the keys.

Maricruz rolls her eyes. “Funny. No, Langdon Kavinsky is the name my contact finally dug up; the name of the dick who definitely was one of the last guys to own the Amulet of Zero.”

“Nero.”

“I know what I said.” 

Lily turns her screen so Nadya can see her search. “So looks like Kavinsky’s some rich white dude out in the Southwest. Says here he’s famous in certain auction circles for the lengths he’ll go to own the rarest and spookiest stuff.”

Taking in the mustache, the bolo tie, and the fact his hair looks like it was smoothed back with the grease from his smile? Nadya has no trouble imagining this. “I never trusted a man in a cowboy hat. Still don’t.”

Lily knocks Maricruz’s knee with her shoulder. “Did you get a date?”

“Ambrose isn’t exactly my type, _chica.”_

“I meant a date of sale and you know it. If I go blindly digging into the financial records of a guy with that many commas in his account I might not come out alive.”

Nadya and Maricruz stare at her. Lily just shrugs. “I’m an acquired humor.”

“All I got was two years ago, sorry.”

“It’s better than nothing.” Lily’s glasses almost fall off as she tilts her head all the way back to give the woman an upside-down smile. _“But_ it means I gotta go get a few safety measures. Be right back.”

She’s gone in a flash, and Nadya doesn’t need vampire hearing to catch the sounds of rummaging computer parts among the general collected stash of miscellany she calls a bedroom.

Though… it’s not often Nadya and Maricruz are left alone together without the Lily-shaped buffer between them. Not that they don’t get along — Nadya just really doesn’t like thinking of the _last_ time they were alone together. _The Shrike and the Baron. The Cellar. Walking into this very room and seeing Lily—_

“So, Lily told me.”

Nadya’s glad to be taken out of those particular thoughts… but the alternative isn’t exactly sunshine and rainbows either.

She looks over to Maricruz who taps her boot on the arm of the couch in an unheard tune. She’s prone to movement like that a lot. _Never without a beat to groove to,_ Lily calls it.

Judging by the level look in the vampire’s brown eyes, Nadya doesn’t have to guess. It makes sense Lily would share the big mystery behind her immortal curtain. 

“Oh,” she says; because… what else is she _supposed_ to say?

Maricruz nods; clicks her tongue for a long moment and the beat of her boot definitely falters somewhere in the middle.

“Is there something you… wanted to know?”

“Well since you bring it up, yeah.” She pounces on the opportunity; startles Nadya just a tad but when she recovers it dawns on her that she’s never seen Maricruz this antsy.

Not since that night.

 _“I’m not gonna fucking turn her,”_ hours earlier she’d seen the woman impale a henchman twice her size on a pool cue like it was nothing but Nadya hadn’t been scared of her until that moment, _“and if you ask again I’m out.”_

So Nadya hadn’t asked — she’d risked everything, made _Adrian_ risk everything. But Maricruz _had_ stayed. That was the one thing that never really made sense.

“Lily kinda gave me the _‘too long; didn’t read’_ version of your whole… deal. The Blooddreamer thing.”

“Blood _keeper,”_ Nadya corrects, not that it matters.

“Right, yeah, that. I’m sorry you had to see it.”

Which has her swallowing on her heart dry in her throat. “Me too.”

“So then does that mean you can, like, see everything about us? Through our whole lives up to now?”

It’s not a question asked lightly. Maricruz is uncertain and probably for good reason. Nadya is uncertain, too. She thinks to the journal she has hidden at the bottom of her bag (the first thing she’d checked for after realizing she was no longer under Gaius’ boot; honestly she was surprised it was still there) and wishes not for the first time that she could give someone— _anyone_ —the ‘definite’ answer they’re looking for.

“I don’t know. Not — not _before_ anyone was Turned, I think.”

“Can you pick whose memories you see, though?”

“No.”

“But Lily —”

And Nadya shuts that down real fast; “If I could have _picked_ whether or not to see my best friend’s _murder_ I think I would have opted out.”

Immediately Maricruz turns away — she knows she’s crossed a boundary. “No — no of course.”

“Why don’t you just ask me what you want to ask me, Mari?”

Lily still breathes because she’s spent more time alive doing it than not. Adrian and Kamilah still breathe because they have lives and stakes in the human world; and because Adrian enjoys it on some level.

But Maricruz is always so _still._ Like the day she realized she no longer needed to hold her breath was a relief she never knew she needed.

Nadya watches, silent except for her breathing (which she actually _needs_ to do) and swears its just the lights from the apartment building across the street that make it look like Maricruz goes through a century of anguish in the seconds that pass.

Even though she knows better by now.

“She makes me a better person, you know?” The vampire finally says; and Nadya _does_ know — she really does. “When we met — when she still thought I was human — I think that was the first time I’d really _laughed_ in years. Hell—Matsuo was so confused when I showed up back at the Den that morning. I think he was a little scared to be honest.”

Nadya can imagine it; imagine but not remember it for herself thank god, and it makes her smile. “I bet.”

“There’s just this—this _energy_ Lily has. You see it, you feel it too. More than optimism, its…”

“Lilyism?”

A very-much made up word that has them both in soft laughter. “Yeah,” Maricruz agrees, _“‘Lilyism.’_ I like that.

“When you’re new to all this, when your Turning is violent and scary, it’s so easy to go Feral. To lose all that spark you had in life. And I’ve been around since the Clans started. Raines — he was the most trustworthy of the lot but that wasn’t saying much in my book. He played by the rules but he was the only one doing it. If the Council fucked Lily over…”

She doesn’t have to say it. Nadya knows. Thankfully — thanks to Maricruz herself, actually — that’s not something she ever felt like she needed to worry about.

“You wanted to make sure she didn’t lose all the things that made her _Lily.”_

“Yeah. She made me a better person in just that short while we knew each other. Returning the favor was the least I could do.”

There’s a _thunk_ from the direction of the bedrooms and they both stop; silent. Nadya knows its irrational, it’s not like they’re discussing something _secret._ But it’s a private moment — for the both of them.

And it won’t last much longer. “Look, Nadya,” she clenches her fists on top of her jeans frayed and worn at the knees, “what I’m tryin’ to say is this; if the time ever comes and you end up seeing the _me_ I was before I met Lily, I just gotta ask you not to judge me for it. I’m not that woman anymore. I’ve done some stuff I’m not proud of and I’ll tell Lily eventually. I will. But…”

“But you deserve the chance to tell her in your own time and in your own way.”

“Yeah. That’s it exactly.”

They meet eyes across the suddenly vast apartment living room. Whatever Maricruz was expecting has her hesitant — but Nadya couldn’t be more understanding.

Hesitancy melts into visible relief. And Maricruz definitely would have thanked Nadya; she knows that much at least. If it wasn’t for the fact that the spell of their moment is broken by Lily bounding in at a surprisingly human speed and with arms filled with computer parts; the very least of which looks like it includes a tower, two monitors, and what looks like a DJ’s digital board.

 _“Cariña,”_ and even Maricruz looks intimidated by the _amount_ of it all, “this is _‘a few?’”_

Lily doesn’t even bother with fake remorse. They both know her better than that — and she knows it. “Better safe than sorry?”

It’s so _Lily;_ a Lilyism by textbook definition. Nadya and Maricruz exchange looks over her technological dragon’s hoard and share that exact thought at the exact same time — and burst into laughter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, two chapters today! Not only because they kind of work in tandem with one another, but because Chapter 7 is kind of intense for our girl Nadya and I’m awful to my characters, what can I say? Comments and critique would be fabulous. Thank you for reading!


	7. The Bloodqueen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There are things in Kamilah's past she would not share with anyone, least of all Nadya. The problem is that Nadya can't always choose the stories her visions tell. When she learns the truth Kamilah lashes out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **chapter content warnings:** language, hallucinations, verbal abuse (light), mentions of violence

“Anything else you’ve need of before I take my leave?”  


“No, Gerard. Thank you and enjoy the rest of your evening.”

He tips his hat to them. “Have a pleasant rest of your evening then, Lady Kamilah — Nadya.”

The butler lingers in the doorway; it takes Nadya a moment (too long, and she feels bad about it even if she can’t quite muster up the words to apologize) to realize he’s waiting on her. She looks up and hopes her smile isn’t _too_ strained.

“Good night, Gerard.”

It was; it was definitely too strained. There’s a second where the elderly man looks like he won’t leave until she tells him what’s up. But he doesn’t pry. He’s worked for Kamilah too long to pry.

Though when the door closes behind him and leaves Kamilah and Nadya alone… she kind of wishes he’d stayed. As a buffer.

She pulls herself back into the room to find Kamilah’s expectant eye right on her. “You were saying?”

_Crap, what was she saying? Does she know? How could she possibly know?_

Fear makes Nadya tighten her hands — that’s when she remembers the notepad in her lap; the conversation they were just getting into when Gerard had said his final goodbyes.

“Right right right,” Nadya clicks her tongue, “we were talking about…”

Kamilah gives her a moment for her tongue to catch up with the rest of her thoughts but when it’s obvious that won’t be a timely thing; “You were telling me about the name the smuggler’s contact provided you?”

 _Yes, duh._ “Right; Kavinsky, Langdon Kavinsky. Big money out in Vegas, I think he owns a casino or something? The last time the Amulet was on any kind of formal paperwork was when Kavinsky bought it a couple years ago from some private collector in England.”

“And he has it still?”

“Ugh, _no._ He lost it in some poker game.” Nadya flips through her notes maybe a little too enthusiastically; but it’s an excuse not to look Kamilah in the face and she’ll take it. “Lily found a bunch of transcripts of what look like… minutes? Like from a courtroom.”

“It isn’t uncommon for that tier of wealth, especially in an environment where large sums of money change hands quickly and not always in plain sight.”

“Got it — the Amulet isn’t directly named but there’s this pair, here look, they come into the game late. Then the girl, the guy, and Kavinsky keep sporadically mentioning some _‘historical artifact’_ and about a week later the Amulet is no longer on Kavinsky’s inventory list.”

The minutes, the inventory; both of which Nadya tries to offer but Kamilah doesn’t take. She’s too focused on the trembling hand that holds them out. It makes her raise an eyebrow in wordless question.

“Too much coffee.” She explains, and nothing about Kamilah’s expression says she buys it, but thankfully this is more important than that.

Kamilah takes the pages and makes it a point of practically holding Nadya’s hand as she does. The effect is an instantly calming one; albeit temporary.

“This couple you mention,” Kamilah looks between the stapled pages with a furrow in her brow, “they aren’t named.”

Nadya nods; she’d noticed the same thing. “Weird, right? So Lil’ said she’d try and dig for some security tapes or something — if not from the actual tournament then from the hotel lobby in case they were guests. Actually getting hold of the guy himself is a last resort, but —”

“The fewer who know what we seek; the better.”

“Exactly.”

Kamilah sighs and sets the papers aside on the glass coffee table. She combs a hand through the curtain of her hair and can Nadya really be blamed for watching with just a teeny tiny bit of absolute adoration? Even like this, exhausted of the pursuit like they all are by now, she’s still timelessly beautiful.

But Nadya hadn’t come all the way across town to the penthouse just to share a name and a bunch of ‘maybes.’ Only she had the whole cab ride to psyche herself up and now… looking at her like this… now she doesn’t know if she can go through with it. Doesn’t know if she can bring herself to hurt Kamilah like she knows she’s going to.

_“You deserve the chance to tell her in your own time and in your own way.”_

That dumb, terrible part of Nadya that’s always thinking (and never in their favor) didn’t let her understand what she’d fully meant when she said it to Maricruz. Of course she definitely meant it for them — especially after everything that’s happened the last couple of weeks about secrets and lies and things always coming out at the worst possible time. But she hadn’t meant it _just_ for them.

And this… this is something Nadya would rather Kamilah hear from her personally than anyone else. From Gaius, or (god forbid) from the woman finding it out on her own somehow.

Kamilah leans her head against the back of the couch; leaves her eyes open the bare minimum to look at Nadya through long dark lashes. That same uncomfortable surveillance, but now they don’t have shop talk to cover it up with. Nadya’s discomfort hangs over them like a piano on a fraying rope — if she can hear her own heart trying to punch a hole in her chest there’s no question about whether Kamilah can.

“Have you decided?”

Nadya swallows. “Decided what?”

“Whether or not you will tell me what you wish to tell me.”

“I —”

She fumbles when two fingers come crooked under her chin; raising it just the barest bit. Exposing the splotchy flush of her anxieties running down her throat and past the collar of her shirt. It’s that same kind of insistence Kamilah uses on her in the bedroom. A request Nadya has one last chance to deny. But once she doesn’t it’s no longer a request but a command.

That a woman of Kamilah’s caliber _requests_ anything of Nadya is still nothing short of a miracle. She just has to pray it’s not short-lived after tonight.

“Kamilah?”

“Yes, Nadya?”

“There’s something I need to tell you,” — and before the vampiress can find amusement in her awkwardness — “something… something I’ve been keeping from you.”

The hand falls down and away. Kamilah sits up straighter; no longer so at ease.

 _What more could you possibly keep from me,_ asks the look in her dark eyes. And it’s not a request.

“Wait here, I need to… to go get it.”

Against every instinct in her bones Nadya stands and goes to grab her overnight bag. Poets have written tragedies about the struggle and heartache that grows with every step. Into the bedroom and where her bag rests on the chair in the far corner; like her subconscious wanted to give her as many obstacles as possible. As if that would somehow deter her. Nadya pulls back the zipper and digs all the way down to the bottom.

Even with walls between them she feels the weight of Kamilah’s stare.

_One last breath…_

She knew it would be difficult, but letting go of the journal is the hardest thing Nadya’s ever had to do in her entire life.

And at this point she’s lived quite a few lives.

It’s not about admitting that everything up until that moment is real. She’s come to terms with that — violently, almost. She didn’t really have a choice after all. Something about being taken hostage by the father of all vampires and being forced to remember things like the location of a secret Amulet or living through the murder of her best friend.

Truthfully Nadya still thinks _Bloodkeeper_ is kind of a dumb title but she’s made her peace with it.

It’s about admitting things about this awful, cursed ability. Not to herself but to others; to the people she loves most. Things she’s only ever told the pages of this little book (and Valdas but she’s officially not counting him, on account of the fact that he’s a lying deceitful jerkface). Because nightmares and haunting memories aside there are some things Nadya is convinced shouldn’t be shared. Because there’s no amount of truth or resolution in the simple act of knowing these things that can outweigh the awfulness of it. Things that involve Adrian, the Trinity; even Gaius.

Things that involve Kamilah.

But Nadya lets go of it anyway. She has to be strong right now — for them both. Now more than ever. A little too late since she now knows this is the second Bloodkeeper’s account that Kamilah has ever held. This one, though, was given willingly.

She has a sinking feeling that doesn’t make a difference.

If she has a question Kamilah lets it die on the tip of her tongue. She takes the little book with a shadow of recognition. Despite that she opens it anyway.

Kamilah flips through the first few pages without really looking. Nadya’s a little relieved she doesn’t have to describe what exactly it is in detail. A quick thumb brushes along the edges and Kamilah sees the same thing Valdas did — the not-so-slow dissolution of sanity and legibility with every entry.

Back to the front, she smooths back the cover by the crease and lets her open palm rest on the first page. 

It’s dated _April 14_ and in comparison to the rest of the book it’s pretty tame. From back when the memories were solely nightmares that came only in her deepest sleep. Fragments of an identity Nadya still doesn’t know; the tearful account of a young woman betrayed, Turned by the person she thought loved her most. And how at peace she felt when the tip of a white picket fence met her heart.

Nadya’s pretty sure the silence will drive her insane.

“It’s —”

Kamilah cuts her off without looking up. “I know what it is.”

Insanity it is, then. Agony, too. Tension bordering on the tearful until…

“I was given the impression you forgot the exact details of the… _memories_ you experienced, more often than not.”

Nadya knows she deserves every clipped syllable. “I know.”

“I see now that was not the case.”

“No, it wasn’t.”

Slowly the vampire turns the page; then another — and another.

Several times Kamilah attempts to speak — opens and closes her mouth when she accepts words fail her each time. It’s miserable for Nadya to watch and not know what exactly is holding her back. Is it that she doesn’t know what to say, or how to go about saying it?

Nadya might not be able to keep it together if she doesn’t find something else to look at; so she focuses on her hands in her lap, skin stretched white over her knuckles in taut fists. Inevitably her focus draws to the bracelet Kamilah gifted her — what seems like forever and a year ago. It feels heavier; like a shackle.

One she deserves.

“You once told me that I knew things you wouldn’t…” _no, no that’s not right,_ “hold on — lemme try again — you’ve known… _dammit,”_ because if there was ever a time to curse it’s now, “if I had any way to control these—these _awful_ things I…”

Kamilah holds up a single finger. Nadya’s mouth shuts so hard and so fast she actually bites her tongue; stifles the painful little noise and swallows the faint taste of blood that Kamilah doesn’t even react to — not one bit — and that only tightens the knots she’s already in.

But she doesn’t even look up; not once. She just… reads. Devours page after page. Each time she turns a new one Nadya feels her heart skip a beat — finds it a little bit harder to breathe. By the time Kamilah reaches the last entry she might well pass out from lack of oxygen.

It would almost be preferable.

Finally Kamilah reaches the last entry. The most recent one; dated for three days after her return from Gaius’ withered clutches.

Nadya had penned it down because she was naive and planned never to share these awful pages with anyone — especially not _these_ pages, especially not _Kamilah._ But it was the first vision she could _call_ a memory and that was important for some reason. It seemed like a fitting final entry because it meant that all the ones before it were real; that she wasn’t crazy or dying or both.

If only feeling that way had made her words easier to write.

Nothing in the world could have done that.

_It doesn’t matter whether I understand it or not. They felt fear. They were afraid. So I felt fear and I was afraid. The horde was two things at once: just another mobbing of the weak against the strong and a new kind of determined they hadn’t seen from humanity before. Humanity that wasn’t a part of the Order. I still don’t know what “the Order” is but this is the 22-nd time I’ve felt it. It’s probably an organization of some kind but the ones who think of it treat it like a person instead of many people. A persistent enemy._

_I’m wearing armor, some kind of chainmail. Every step is heavy but whoever I am, I’m old so I might only be aware of it because I (me) am not used to it. The sword at my side is an old friend. I’m in a ballroom of some kind but there’s no music or dancing. Whoever I am I don’t mind this though. I think I have two left feet. They are coming but I (me) don’t know who they are. At least we aren’t underground. I keep thinking that._ At least we aren’t underground. At least we aren’t underground.

 _Marcel comes running up to me through the crowd of panicking people. All of them: vampires. He’s carrying a sword and shield too big for his small size. They don’t match his fancy frock. I only notice this because frocks don’t do much against pitchforks and scythes. And I tell him as much. I tell him his weapons are not made for battle, and that he should leave. I just want to keep him safe._ At least we aren’t underground. _He’s so small sometimes I forget he is only a few decades younger than myself._ I will not lose sight of you this time Banner, _he says._

_His Majesty, Our King comes up on the crowd. He summons me to his side because I am his Soldier. But I do so easier when I see Marcel’s face among the masses. I’m on his left and his Queen is on his right._

_NOTE: I (me) imagine he gave a rallying speech, but I don’t remember enough to write it down here. I can’t stop thinking about Kamilah. She was wearing the dress from the Ball. I knew it was old but seeing it in these visions, memories, that upsets me. Seeing it covered in blood upsets me. And it’s_ a lot of blood.

 _The mob breaks through the barricades at the stroke of midnight. Our King and Queen and myself are on the front line. These are mere humans — workers laborers poor and starving. They aren’t a challenge. I’ve always hated being forced to attend parties and balls but this is my new favorite one. I force a man to swallow my sword with one hand and crush a woman’s throat with the other. I can taste their blood in my teeth. It splatters and drips down my armor. I polished the breastplate that evening. I keep Marcel close at hand just in case._ At least we aren’t underground.

_The Bloodqueen dances now like she did before the attack. Her dress picks up pooling blood from fallen prey and trails it around the floor. I try to keep Marcel distracted — he will weep like a child for the marble. I prefer it this way. Judging by the way the blood drips from her: mouth, hair, cheeks, dress, daggers, she agrees. I make sure to count my dead. She’s bested me in body count thrice now. I don’t intend to let her do so again._

There was more to it; there always is. Things Nadya can’t quite remember because she’s only human and how can she possibly be expected to remember every detail of something so terrible on top of exhaustion and stress and fear?

Nadya reaches out to take the book back — as though _out of sight out of mind_ could possibly apply to this, them; _here_ — but Kamilah’s nails dig into the leather cover savage like fangs. The sight makes her recoil which is most definitely the _wrong_ thing to do even though she really didn’t mean to do it.

But the damage is done.

Kamilah can’t bear to look at her, she stands and pulls herself away. Seeing someone always so confident and at home in their own skin this way — pacing back and forth uneven and direction-less, mouth twitching with words held back, everything normally kept stable beneath the surface in danger of bursting out all at once — Nadya’s heart keeps breaking over and over and over again.

Knowing that she’s the reason for it all is worse in a way she isn’t sure she can describe.

“Are there more?”

Kamilah practically hisses the words; “Are there more of these… _accounts?”_

“No.” Nadya answers — only, hers is a short-lived relief.

“But this is not all that you remember.”

 _Remember;_ she spits — like its Nadya’s fault or something.

She doesn’t answer fast enough for Kamilah’s liking. The woman rounds on her one breath away from… from…

“That’s not all of it, no.”

“Tell me.”

“Kamilah —”

_“Tell. me.”_

“Tell you _what?!”_

“Tell me what else you have seen of my acts. How far back does your mind reach into our memories— _my_ memories? Can you tell them apart; pluck out the ones which _interest_ you? Do you witness each one from another’s eyes or have you suffered to _become_ me, and kept _that_ from me as well? Of what you’ve seen which is the worst of my sins?”

Nadya scrambles to think of one; tries to pull apart the tangled knots of what she _did_ write down and what she _didn’t_ and the difference between actual memories and things she dreamed of equal tragedy because can she really be expected to have all of that in her head all the time and not lose some portion of her own thoughts in the process?

“I — I can’t remember.”

Kamilah brandishes the book like damning evidence and Nadya’s the one on trial. “Obviously _that_ is another of your _mostly-truths.”_

“That’s not fair —”

“Do you believe any of this to be _fair,_ Nadya? Surely you are no longer so naive.”

 _What am I supposed to say?_ When it seems like everything she tells Kamilah is met with some kind of argument; like it isn’t ever going to be good enough.

All of that tied up with the rest of her and somehow Nadya still feels like she’s unraveling at the edges again. It leaves her gaping, noiseless, second-triple-quadruple guessing every word and thought until tears are brimming in her eyes and Kamilah just _looks on._

“What do you want me to say?” Nadya begs. Her tears leave scalding trails down her cheeks. _“Please,_ Kamilah please just tell me what you want me to say.” _Because nothing I’m saying is right. Because you demand the truth and you demand answers but those aren’t the same thing anymore._

Pain flickers sharp in Kamilah’s eyes. A different kind of pain than what’s already there. Is it wrong for Nadya to hope it has something to do with the fact Kamilah made her cry; that she somehow regrets lashing out like this?

“I want you to tell me why. Why did you show me this, Nadya,” Kamilah drops the journal to their feet, _“why would you hurt me in this way?”_

But she doesn’t wait for an answer this time around. Nadya’s barely struggled through a wheezing breath and Kamilah is already at the other end of the room, back turned — can’t even stand the sight of her.

“Kamilah…”

Who doesn’t move.

When Nadya finally manages the simple act of standing its on wobbly legs. She may very well fall on her face in the strides it takes to get to Kamilah but she’d fall on her face a hundred times more if it mends this wound gored out of them.

“Just talk to me, Kamilah. Please—I-I don’t like this,” _you don’t either — I can tell,_ “I was trying to—to put everything out in the open. No more secrets, nothing that could hurt…” _hurt you — but you just said I hurt you,_ “Kamilah, please. This isn’t you.”

Nadya reaches out but Kamilah isn’t there. She’s just shy of Nadya’s touch — she may be blind and bleary-eyed but she knows when someone’s pulled away.

“You don’t know me.”

Kamilah has pulled away from her. Left her aimless; floating in some awful void where she doesn’t know what to say — to think — to feel or _do_ to make it right.

“Though,” the woman laughs bitterly, “perhaps you do — and better than I would have ever allowed.”

 _Allowed?_ “What — are you saying you wouldn’t have ever told me about your life before this?”

_Before me?_

“And have you see me in such a way? No, never.”

“But _you_ were the one who said we shouldn’t have any more secrets.”

“The circumstances were different.”

“Because they were mine.” It’s not a question. Nadya isn’t _asking_ anything; just saying the things Kamilah would rather skirt around, apparently. “I can’t hide things from you but you can hide things from me no problem. That’s not how this works.”

Kamilah turns enough for Nadya to catch her in profile. To catch the slight quirk of her eyebrow at _“this.”_ This—them—whatever they are or… or _were_. Because if this is the way Kamilah wants things then Nadya might have spent the last year making the biggest mistake of her life.

Kamilah shakes her head with a sigh. “No, you foolish girl. The secrets you kept from me — the severity of your struggle, the things collected in that damned book — they _hurt you.”_

“They —”

“Do not lie to me again.” _Not like this,_ her unspoken plea — but Kamilah doesn’t do things like that, _not now._

And Nadya promised she wouldn’t. So she doesn’t. And she really doesn’t know how to feel about how surprised Kamilah looks for it.

 _“My_ secrets, however,” she continues, “only hurt you if you know them. Things are better this way — or rather they were.”

Strangely Nadya feels like she’s had some version of this conversation before. Not with Kamilah but someone she dated, probably back home. How is it they’re arguing about Nadya’s _dreamlike memories of every vampire ever including bad stuff Kamilah did_ and it’s still ringing out like a totally normal couple fighting?

Why does that make Nadya feel both better _and_ worse about the whole thing?

“You make it sound like I did this on purpose.” She couldn’t quite shake what exactly was bothering her about Kamilah’s tone but that’s it — isn’t it? One of those rare times her lack of filter is a good thing. Mostly because Nadya isn’t really sure she’d have the guts to say it if she _did_ have one.

Kamilah snorts; derisive and judgmental — and doesn’t even have the guts to look her in the eyes when she does it.

“You admitted to keeping it from me.”

“What, the—the _journal?_ I’m not talking about the journal. I’m talking about the memories.”

 _I’ll take that silence as a_ yes _then, huh._ “Is that what you think? Is that why you’re mad at me right now? You think I _wanted_ to see that side of you?” Question after question but Nadya barely even breaks to _breathe_ let alone let Kamilah get an answer in. “Every single word in that freakin’ book that’s about you — those were the hardest words I’ve ever had to write!”

“Then why did you write them at all?”

“Because they’re important! Because they have to mean something!”

“Something like what, exactly,” sneers Kamilah, “beyond showing you swaths of carnage I once carved out of the world, or the blood that still seeps from my very fingertips?”

“Or maybe — wild guess here — they aren’t _random memories_ I’m being forced to see? Maybe they _mean something?_ Or… or…”

Now is definitely not the time to lose what little momentum she’s got — not that Nadya can really do anything about it. So Kamilah takes advantage of even the slightest falter.

 _“‘Or’_ what, Nadya?” Calm, composed, effortlessly cool Kamilah — even now.

“Or maybe writing everything down made it easier for me to cope because I knew that the woman on those pages and the woman who held me safe in my sleep weren’t the same; not at all.”

The vampire recoils sudden; violent. Nadya can practically see the chains and walls and vast fields of thorns building up in strength and numbers behind her eyes.

“If you truly believe that… then you have learned nothing.”

“I’ve learned a lot, actually.”

“Not enough to spare you. They are one in the same — these women of whom you speak; one raised up to the heavens and the other damned to despair. They are both _me.”_

“Maybe once, but —”

 _“No,”_ she insists — and shakes her head in disappointment, “there are no exceptions. You do not— _cannot_ —understand. For all the extraordinary things that you are, you are still mortal. And that blinds you; limits you.”

 _Limits us,_ is what she means. Nadya can’t tell which one of them she’s sparing by not saying it.

Her dignity flew out this particular door a long time ago but Nadya still tries to compose herself; wipes her tears with the back of her hand hastily. She hiccoughs with a squeak.

“Kamilah — I _want_ to understand. I want to—to _try_ at the very least. So why don’t you?”

Nadya doesn’t mean it as an accusation. Or maybe (on the inside) she does.

“Because I have seen this before. And I know how it ends.”

“That’s an excuse.”

“There is only one way this _can end!”_ And suddenly their world of subtle metaphors isn’t subtle at all; its hundreds of miles away.

 _This._ Nadya’s useless attempts at trying to help Kamilah open up?

 _This._ Kamilah; who knows what she wants and takes it, and Nadya; who never seems to know her own head?

 _This._ A two thousand year old vampire and the twenty-something mortal who is starting to see _forever_ written with the letters of the immortal’s name?

“The things in that book —” Kamilah can’t even bear to look at it now, “— the version of myself you have seen, god forbid if you’ve _lived_ through her eyes… I have not shunned her. I wear her every day, and I will until the end of my days. Yet while I have spent decades forcing her into my shadow there are those who would see her and call her _Bloodqueen;_ who would _bow_ to her feet and cower beneath her in equal measure.

“The very idea that _you_ of all people have seen what I am capable of causes me pain, Nadya. I don’t know which thought is worse; that you might have committed my darkest acts with your own hands or that you still could. If I had known about this I could have found a way to spare you from it. But right now…

“Right now there is nothing on this earth I would like more than to open up your head and rip every single memory of who I was from your mind with my bare hands.”

Rancid fear — totally _valid_ fear but try telling her that right now — rises like bile in the back of her throat. Nadya steps back, trips over her own feet actually, and feels the cool glass of the table hit the back of her legs. And _oh god_ that was definitely the wrong thing to do because Kamilah’s eyes are flaring red and suddenly she can’t close the gap between them fast enough.

She pins Nadya in place. Hands hovering just shy of her upper arms. Kamilah is restraining herself from _grabbing Nadya_ but only barely. No matter how badly she wants to close her eyes and turn away, though, she doesn’t.

She can’t.

“Are you afraid of me, _mortal?”_

 _Yes._ “No.”

“What did I say about lying?”

“I’m not afraid of you.” _I’m afraid of who you think you are._

“I don’t believe you,” any closer and Kamilah will have to step inside her skin, “not for all of the depravities you have seen—felt— _lived_ through my eyes and others. Tell me Nadya,” the backs of her fingers are soft against Nadya’s cheek; it should be a crime to say such awful words in such a velvet voice, “which of them did you fancy best?

“Was it the slaughter at Damascus, and the bacchanalia we reveled in among the corpses? Or perhaps the culling of Versailles — were you witness to my machinations there? Did you see the part I played, the heartstrings I pulled and twisted until _ma petit Marie_ trusted me with her life right up to the moment when I led the mob to her gilded door?

“Do you know to this day, four centuries later, I still cannot gaze out from a balcony without hearing the screams of a dozen chapel sisters and their charges while we hunted them down one. by. one.”

A familiar weakness knocks at Nadya’s knees. _No, not this, please not again —_ she would give anything, everything, not to succumb to the rush of memories that crash into her in Kamilah’s voice. It might take more willpower than she has left to stop them. But she tries; _god she tries._

“Stop — Kamilah please just stop.”

The vampire sneers back at her. “Why should I?”

“I know what you’re trying to do,” — _I won’t let you push me away with fear_ — “I don’t…”

“You wanted to know, didn’t you; _to understand?”_

They both sound so broken.

“I don’t want —”

“What? What don’t you want?”

_“I don’t want to be protected!”_

Nadya braces her hands against Kamilah’s chest and shoves with all her might. Where did _that_ come from? And some small part of her asks _do you want to know, do you care right now?_ Maybe she doesn’t. Maybe she’s so angry at Kamilah right now she might actually burst with it.

Kamilah is too graceful of a creature to _stumble_ in anything. But she does step back — a wildness still in her eyes but Nadya feels _that_ too and takes it into her own frustration, sadness; torment.

“I am _tired_ of you people trying to—to _protect me_ from everything! You think you know what’s best for me but why don’t I get to decide that for myself? It involves me, doesn’t it? I deserve the right to choose, Kamilah! Stop taking it from me!”

She gets why people yell when they argue now — it feels freakin’ amazing. “Over and over _and over_ again — I’m already losing my mind; my sense of self. I can’t lose my right to choose too.” _I can’t lose you, too._ “You think you know what’s best for me — why, because you’ve lived _sooo many freakin’ lifetimes_ that automatically gives you permission over my mind, my body; my actions? Well _newsflash;_ that’s not how relationships work!

“I kept things from you, I admit that. And I’m _sorry._ I literally can’t apologize any more than I already have. But you don’t get to act like this when you were the one who wanted honesty. You don’t get to throw a tantrum because you did bad things!”

She doesn’t mean some of it; but most of it is just raw and unfiltered _Nadya._ There was a time when Kamilah liked that about her. But none of this is to make Kamilah happy. Frankly she’s tired of trying to do that and finding walls at every turn.

Nadya _sucks_ at mazes.

“There is far more than —”

“I’m sorry — _did I say I was done?”_ And that’s another addition to her list of regrets when she _is_ done — but she’s not.

She jabs a finger at Kamilah’s chest. “You keep telling me I don’t understand—I can’t understand. But if you stopped acting like I’m just another _pathetic human_ you might realize literally nobody in the entire world can understand better than me. Not Adrian, not Gaius; _me._ And even if you took all this supernatural _bullcrap_ out of it it’s not your decision whether or not I’m capable of _getting you._

“You don’t get to pull me close and push me away any time you feel like it. You can’t spend one night telling me how you were afraid of me getting hurt and then shove yourself up in my face all _‘are you afraid mortal’_ the next! That’s just not how it works. That’s not how _this_ is going to work. I deserve better than that.”

Nadya grabs Kamilah’s hand the instant before she starts to pull away. Words are so important, you know? And they couldn’t be more opposite; Kamilah who chooses hers with the utmost caution and Nadya who just kind of spouts them off until the right ones come out in the right order. It’s because of those differences between them that she holds on tight even though she’s very well aware that Kamilah could break free with little thought.

Nadya says _‘I deserve better than that.’_ But what Kamilah hears is _‘I deserve better than you.’_

“Please,” she begs; though it would be helpful if someone told her what it was she was begging _for,_ “Kamilah… please.”

The twitch of Kamilah’s fingers brush against the inside of her wrist. A bodily impulse to hold Nadya’s hand.

They hold each other captive with a gaze.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Unfortunately when it comes to a people-pleaser and someone with a very ugly past things can’t always be perfect and paradise. But relationships grow as we grow, and this really is an important thing for Nadya to come to terms with; what she deserves out of their relationship. On a better(?) note, coming up next is the Big Easy! I've been stuck at home due to work quarantine and... I have to admit, waiting a week per chapter is killing me right now... and I'm the one who wrote it? So what do we think? Should Chapter 8 follow up later today? 
> 
> Comments and critique would be fabulous. Thank you for reading!


	8. The Big Easy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Amulet's trail ends in the supernaturally rich city of New Orleans. Still reeling from hers and Kamilah's first real fight, Nadya, Lily, and Adrian travel to the French Quarter to see old friends and meet some new faces.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **chapter content warnings:** language

She meant to fake-awaken from the nap of all naps when Lily returned from her minibar excursion. Unfortunately though Nadya’s just a little too lost in her thoughts; which delays her reaction by enough of a fraction of a second for to be fooling absolutely nobody.  


“You shouldn’t do that.”

Nadya combs her fingers through her hair. She may not have actually been asleep but tell that to the nest that somehow spontaneously manifested where she was resting against the wall of the plane.

She plasters on her best _‘ditzy secretary’_ face. “Do what?” she asks; pitches her voice just a tad but that’s overselling it.

All credibility pretty much flies out of the window and down the however-many-thousand-feet to the ground below. And without a parachute, poor thing.

“Well first of all don’t gimme that look. I helped you invent it, remember?” Only Lily could chide her enough to actually make Nadya feel _bad_ while simultaneously inhaling a complimentary bag of Korean BBQ chips. _“Dos,_ you shouldn’t bottle it all up inside. And don’t you dare say you don’t know what I’m talking about. I _will_ shove potato chips down your bra.”

Nadya blows a strand of hair up, but it falls back down right in front of her eye. _Great, even her_ hair _is out to get her._

“Please don’t. I only packed one.” And Adrian and her will never be close enough friends for her to feel comfortable asking him to swing by Target for a quick _bra buy._

“Same girl, same.” But even as Lily kicks up her boots and makes herself comfortable the intent is clear. She’s going to get Nadya to open up somehow, some way, and most likely some time before they start to descend on New Orleans.

After all she’s practically locked in between her seat and the fancy table by vampire thighs of steel.

_Crunch. Crunch. Crun—_

“I’ll talk about it when I’m ready, Lil’, okay?”

_Cruuunnn—_

“I promise! Pinky promise, blood oath, anything!” Just _please_ don’t keep chewing like that. She’s very near begging on her knees.

After quickly wiping the flavor powder off, Lily holds up her pinky finger expectantly. Nadya takes it with her own. She means it too, villainous torture methods aside. Some people went their whole lives and then some without someone to care about them as much as Lily cares for Nadya — she knows this and really, her gratitude is unwavering.

But she’s still a little too raw on the inside (and out; her tear ducts may have gone into permanent early retirement by now) to just _bring it all up._ And so casually, too.

The cabin lights catch on the chains of her charm bracelet. Little sparkles that draw Nadya in; pull her down deep in velvet the same black as the midnight sky, away from the stale plane air and back to New York.

Back to Kamilah.

And Lily — well, she’s Lily. Of course she notices. Just like she quickly acts and lowers their still-linked hands before Nadya suffers the unpleasantness of choking on her heart _again._

“I’d say lets head back there —” she jerks her head from the direction she came from, “— and get you a little tipsy for your troubles, but for some reason showing up to a place like New Orleans already drunk feels like blasphemy.”

_“And I wouldn’t feel comfortable with the plan if you weren’t completely sober, Nadya.”_

The girls look over across the aisle to where Adrian leans back and away from his laptop, a slightly admonishing look in his eye. Nadya blindly seeks out the open bag of chips while offering what she hopes is a smile that says _“Yes, of course, I totally agree,”_ even though a margarita at the very least sounds comforting.

“Actually, since it’s out there, how are _you_ feeling?”

Lily tenses beside her. It takes him a moment to realize what he’s done but Adrian tries to take it back so fast Nadya’s somehow the one who ends up with emotional whiplash. “I mean — about this; the…” he sighs, “I’m sorry. That was insensitive of me.”

Nadya elbows Lily before she can get a word in. “It’s fine,” she tells Adrian with a smile — and if it’s a little strained well… they can’t blame her.

People fight in relationships sometimes. It’s not ideal, but it happens. Does Nadya wish she could throw open the emergency hatch on Adrian’s private jet (freaking out which happened loudly, quickly, and before they had ever lifted for takeoff) and fly her way back to Kamilah to try and work things out by sheer force of will? You betcha.

Is she going to let that stop her from doing what needs to be done to get this Amulet? No. God willing; she and Kamilah will have plenty of time to cool down, talk, and see where they were supposed to go from the place they had left at. But that’s only the case so long as Nadya, Lily, and Adrian get to the Amulet of Nero before Gaius does.

Though… none of them can still fathom the literally microscopic chances that had decided to work in their favor. No really, Lily ran the numbers. By all accounts they should have been prepared for a voyage around the world, sometimes in multiple places (and according to the simulation, at multiple times).

What were the odds that not only was this mythical once-lost-to-history Nadya-was-literally-kidnapped-to-find-it-but-it-only-took-their-collective-squad-like-two-weeks-and-a-couple-all-nighters Amulet of Nero in the States, but that it was currently in the hands of—well—a friend?

Apparently the odds were pretty freakin’ good.

_“I’ve failed the universe.”_

_“Lily, stop.”_

_“It’s been three days! And all I could come up with was a list of the players from Kavinsky’s private rich-jackass tournament._ A list, _Nadi’.”_

_“It’s far more than we had previously Lily,” Adrian had said with a reassuring squeeze to her shoulder, “and for that matter — its more than Gaius could get on his own. So if anything you’ve outdone him; and trust me when I say that doesn’t happen every millennium.”_

_While it wasn’t the best pep talk in the world it had been enough to get Lily back on track. Her finger scrolling on her mouse faster than humanly possible until she got to the names they needed. Eight billion people in the world and they had narrowed it down to ten. Way to go, Lil’._

_Adrian started to write down the names in his hasty scrawl — which had just been a waste of time since Nadya refuses to try and read his terrible colonial handwriting and already has a list of her own transcribed. “It’s still more than would be ideal. But I think the four of us should be… able… hm.”_

Hm _because of the obvious. Because there were only three people in his office. Because Kamilah is following a lead on the whereabouts of Gaius and while one is arguably more important than the other… it’s good to know his movements. Nadya can’t argue with her logic in that._

_She knows their enemy better than anyone. And it means she doesn’t have to be in the same room as Nadya._

_“Wait — this name, here.” Adrian had pointed at the screen; Lily had slapped his hand away. “I know this one. That can’t be the same man, though, the odds…”_

_“Who-what now?” Nadya hadn’t recognized the name at all._

_LaPointe, C._

_“Someone from your past?”_

The very recent past; like _very_ recent. Like, Nadya-adjacent recent. And with time maybe-probably quickly running out they couldn’t afford to wait to fill everyone in on all the juicy details. Or, apparently, wait for Kamilah to return from _her_ trip.

Sometimes Nadya catches herself looking around for the familiar comfort of maroon.

Overhead there’s a soft bing from the pilot’s speakers.

 _“We’re coming up on_ Louis Armstrong, _Mr. Raines and guests. If you could remain seated until we land, your arrangements have been taken care of as requested.”_

Nadya’s heart pounds a little bit faster. When Lily reaches out to squeeze her hand she doesn’t reject it one bit.

After all, she’s doing the first leg of this on her own.

* * *

“You can do this. You can totally do this.”

Behind her a family of four jostles her chair so hard Nadya almost spills iced coffee slushy all over herself.

“You’ve survived Ferals, and Vega, and Gaius. You kicked butt at ‘Tech-Xpo.’ You’ve eaten French cheese and danced in a corset and you _didn’t even ruin a Lacroix._ You’re a force of nature, and you can _totally_ do this.”

_And remember, he’s just a vampire. If he tries anything just run outside._

“Would Miss ‘Force of Nature’ like a box to go?”

She’s been in the cool shade of the cafe awning for far too long to even pretend like the red in her cheeks is the heat; but that doesn’t mean Nadya doesn’t look up to the sight of her bemused waitress with a styrofoam box and the bill in her hand.

Nadya must look as embarrassed as she feels because she doesn’t even get to answer before the woman gets in a small laugh. “Whatever yer psychin’ ya’self up for, honey, keep at it. More people could stand to give themselves a pep talk.”

“Th-Thanks.”

‘Bonnie’ (as per her name tag) grins with all the boisterousness she’s had since Nadya first took up her table. When she winks it’s full of energy; enough to jingle her large earrings. Nadya kind of wants to adopt her as a weird aunt? But that might just be the all-nighter talking.

Without hesitation Nadya pulls her purse close and takes out one of the (ridiculously unnecessary) large bills Adrian had given her before she got into her cab. Bonnie’s eyes widen, protest at the ready, but Nadya won’t hear it. “I won’t need the box, but thank you.” She all but has to force the hundred under the woman’s thumb.

If she has another one of the mini mountains of powdered sugar on top of her beignets she’s actually gonna burst. The coffee is totally coming with her, though.

Nadya weaves her way first out of the cafe’s closed-off seating, but it somehow only gets worse from there? New York is full of people; she knows this. But she’s gotten used to working nights, to the emptiness of Raines Corp. after dark — so having to literally fight her way through the sea of tourists is a jarring experience to say the least.

_You can do this. You can do this._

Yeah, because her last motivational mantra worked out so well?

This isn’t a vacation (and if it were she’d be too stressed to enjoy it anyway) so she soaks up as much as she can. The ride from the airport to the French Quarter, every street sign and avenue and cool-looking building covered in ivy. A few of the early-riser tour groups she’s passed by have mentioned _‘the history of the city’_ and Nadya is kind enough to let herself imagine — after all this is done — coming back here with Kamilah and learning it from someone who was probably there.

It’s the most optimistic feeling she’s had in… too long, actually.

She puts it to good use in her _‘I’m Totally Not Nervous’_ act all the way from Jackson Square to the small museum off the side of the St. Louis Cathedral. Smiling to the entrance attendants is a little bit easier. So is plucking up the courage to ask a security guard where she might find the offices to visit a friend.

That no one would think a short girl with glasses almost as wide as her face is up to no good doesn’t hurt, too.

If Nadya’s got her orientation right this is definitely the right office. The window — if there even was one — inside would be facing the stonework of the next door church. Perfect for avoiding direct sunlight.

She takes care in not stepping on top of a small, neatly-wrapped bouquet of orchids in front of the office door when she knocks. Picks it up for good measure because they really are a lovely shade of purple and maybe they remind her of better times.

Of rare blue lotuses and… happiness.

Nadya waits… and waits… and waits… and knocks again? She doesn’t know what else to do. Admittedly they all might have been a little too focused on making sure Adrian and Lily had a place to rest during daylight hours.

For the record Nadya still isn’t comfortable with abandoning her friends to sleep in the cargo hold of a plane — private or not.

 _This was a dumb idea. Of course he’s not going to be in his office in the middle of the morning. He_ is _a vampire._

But just before Nadya can put down the flowers and pull out her phone, there’s a _thud_ on the other side of the door.

_“Kathy, is that you?”_

Uh… “No? I’m…”

 _“Yes yes, payroll said they’d be sending someone up,”_ another noise follows — this one more like the distinct collision between feet and office desks of which she is all too familiar, _“just a moment!”_

Nadya realizes she doesn’t have anything prepared to say when the door opens.

When he had arrived late to the Council Chamber for Adrian’s trial, Cadence Smith had looked the very picture of flustered and in a panic. Nadya was pretty familiar with _that,_ too. But apparently that was only a fraction of his anxieties because…

Well to put it in one simple word — _yikes._

Cadence pushes his glasses back up his nose to scrutinize her properly. His tie hangs in a messy and loosened knot around a collar half-unbuttoned and his sweater is untucked and bunched at the waist. If she looks down it’ll be too obvious, but it doesn’t even look like he’s wearing shoes.

He pushes the blond mess from out of his eye-line with his entire palm and leaves a smeared trail of black behind — which makes sense given the large and aged newspaper folded in his grasp.

“You’re not from payroll.”

But Nadya smiles up at him, dishevelment aside. “No, I’m —”

Then he notices the bouquet in her hands. Immediately—almost frighteningly—his entire being goes cold; harsh.

“I thought I told you people to stop delivering those.”

“Huh? Oh, no—no I —”

“I don’t care if he’s bought the lot in advance. I. do not. want them. Christ — there’s no way a flower shop is _this_ dedicated to customer satisfaction!”

“Wait, Mister Smith, if you lemme —”

 _“Burn them._ Next time I’ll have security escort you out. Good day!”

The door slams closed in her face before Nadya can get another word in. She’s left there, dumbfounded, mildly offended, and the good mood from her sugar high now soured.

“Mis— Cadence, please!” She knocks again, and again, and quickly screws politeness in favor of pounding on the thick wooden door. “I know you can hear me! I’m not from a freakin’ flower shop!”

But it’s an office; not like he has anywhere to run. He’s just straight-up ignoring her.

She _so_ does not have time for this.

“Adrian sent me!” Nadya shouts at the top of her lungs. If Cadence doesn’t hear her _someone_ must — maybe she can get through to them instead.

But as it turns out she won’t need to.

Even through the blood pounding in her ears she can hear the door unlock. When he faces her this time, Nadya’s ready.

“Adrian Raines sent me. _These —”_ she shoves the flowers through the door into his chest; then points at her feet, “— were already here. I don’t know what’s got you so rude but I didn’t fly all this way from New York to be —”

“You’re the secretary; the one from the trial who convinced them to let me testify.”

Nadya huffs. “Well—yeah, and I’m also the one who’s _really_ tired of being interrupted.”

The more he recognizes her, the more Cadence softens until some semblance of the man she remembers is all that’s left. He has the decency to look embarrassed at his outburst.

In Nadya’s opinion he shouldn’t talk like that to _anyone;_ let alone some poor person stuck delivering flowers. Makes sense why they were just abandoned in front of the door.

“Oh, and I have a name. It’s —”

“Nadya; I remember now.”

Her nostrils flare and Nadya actually feels the telling-off as it starts to rise from her belly to her lungs. But Cadence realizes his mistake as soon as he makes it; he ducks his head quickly. “I’m — forgive me. That was… I just remember who you are, is all.”

Only after she eyes him up to determine his sincerity does Nadya finally nod; once, and curtly. “Fine.”

The vampire turns the orchids over in his hands; plucks a petal crumpled in their not-quite tussle from the stem and lets it fall like a path to his doorstep.

“A… situation, shall we call it, with a lapse in my judgment has led to, well, these.” He smiles; strained and not quite seen in the eyes. “A fellow who can’t take a hint.”

“I get it. My heart goes out to you.”

“Thank you.”

“But we need to talk; like, now. It’s important.” Nadya nods at what little she can see of his office behind his towering figure. “May I come in?”

He hesitates a beat. “I’m a bit… deep in a research project at the moment. Will this take long?” Then, as an afterthought; “You said Adrian sent you — is he here, as well?”

“Yes, he’s waiting out the sun. But we’re already behind as it is and I don’t want to waste a whole day. It took us long enough to get this far… we don’t have the time.”

“You’re being a bit vague, Nadya, even for me. What are you _‘behind’_ on, exactly?”

Yeah — she’s being vague and she knows it. Feels like somehow the fact that they’ve not really had to talk about the massive panic their situation is worthy of because they all know the stakes has been a blessing. Nadya knows she has to explain things to get Cadence’s help.

It’s just that saying it — actually _telling_ other people — makes everything that’s happening very _very_ real. And being real makes it dangerous.

 _It has already been dangerous,_ says a voice in Nadya’s head that sounds enough like Kamilah to make her lower lip wobble a bit.

“Nadya?”

Not-Kamilah in her head is right. Nadya sucks it up and looks Cadence dead in the eye.

“I need the Amulet of Nero and I know you were the last person to have it — when you beat a man named Kavinsky at poker in Vegas two years ago.”

Cadence defies the laws of nature and somehow manages to look paler than he already was. Which means she’s in the right place.

“How do you… actually, it doesn’t matter. The Amulet is useless to humans.”

“Maybe. But I’m guessing it’s not useless to a psychopathic power-mad vampire king who’s spent almost three _thousand_ years trying to take over the world.”

An eerie calm comes over them as he takes in the weight of what she says. 

Cadence steps aside wordlessly. When she crosses the threshold he stops and checks either end of the hall in a way that totally screams _suspicious._

When he’s satisfied they aren’t being watched, he closes the door behind them.

* * *

He asks her to start _‘from the beginning.’_ But does she really know where that is? Does it begin when Gaius finally revealed himself after a year of working in hiding in secret, or does it begin from a time only a few know and fewer remember?

“I’ve found the beginning is often the place you think of first,” Cadence answers her; he sets down a tray and tells her to be careful to not burn her hand on the offered mug of tea, “that, or the place where _you_ enter the story as a character in your own right.”

It’s all very oddly domestic in here; Nadya wouldn’t be surprised to find out he doesn’t bother with an apartment and just lives here instead. Even if the mess is giving her the headache to beat all headaches.

The ceramic warms her from the tips of her fingers outward. It’s hot as heck outside but if there’s one thing she’s learned from Gerard its that the soothing powers of tea are beyond things as silly as _the weather._

“It’s funny you say something like that.”

“Why would that be?”

“I don’t really _know_ where I come in. Not… not _me,_ as I am, anyway.” She probably—no, definitely—sounds like she’s a few marbles short of the bag. But it’s nice to be able to admit something so personal to a stranger. Someone who won’t judge her — or if he does it’s not that big of a deal.

“I’m not sure I know who _I_ am lately. It’s… hard to explain.”

Cadence brushes the barest touch of his fingertips over her knee. He looks hesitant, like he’s not quite sure he has her permission, but she doesn’t say no to it. It’s like the man who was so cruel to her in the doorway was a skin shed in the safety of his home.

“You don’t have to explain a thing. I know the struggle better than anyone should have a right to.”

Nadya remembers then; Cadence’s testimony on Adrian’s behalf — exactly _why_ Adrian had been in New Orleans in the first place. They had been so close to the Amulet and didn’t even know it.

She’s a little embarrassed by it, to be honest. “Right, I… I’m sorry,” shaking her head, “that was insensitive of me.” _At least she knows her own name._

But the vampire shrugs it off and sips his tea. “The struggle of identity is innate in every species throughout time. If I’ve learned one thing; it’s that.”

It makes Nadya laugh softly. “You must have gotten along with Adrian when he visited.”

“Why do you say that?”

“You’re both kind to the world.” _Kind to others; strangers. But not to yourselves._

Cadence opens his mouth as if to respond; but whatever he plans to say he thinks better of it and changes their course.

“Let’s get back to the Amulet and this… vampire king.”

Which is probably for the best.

She tries to start where things make the most sense — recently, with the Amulet and Gaius’ plan. But that leads to explaining how he was locked up in the first place, which leads to the founding of the New York Council and the Clans, and somehow jumps to the events of the Awakening Ball, and Nadya doesn’t blame him in the slightest when Cadence holds up a finger and grabs a notepad from his nearby desk to start jotting everything down.

It’s a _full transparency_ kind of deal because if Adrian trusts him then Nadya does, too. But some things sound crazy no matter how casually she spins them. So Nadya keeps certain things to herself; the whole _Bloodkeeper_ disaster, her fight with Kamilah, the fact that when she looks at him she can see a woolen uniform dusty with dirt and with embers still clinging to the thick material and a little cut on his forehead that definitely healed a hundred years ago or more.

And to the man’s credit he takes everything in stride. Nods and scribbles down her tale faster than Nadya could ever hope to do herself. He even asks questions here and there; things you’d expect more in a classroom than, well, here.

Though Nadya really doesn’t grasp the enormity of it all until she blinks and realizes her eyes have grown accustomed to a lack of light. She can’t even see the small alley street below his window anymore. _Jeez, it’s sunset already?_

“And that’s why we need the Amulet of Nero; if Gaius gets to it first and there really _is_ a vial of blood from the First Vampire inside…”

Cadence nods. “It’s an ‘end of the world’ sort of deal. Well… for humans, anyway.”

 _Did he really need to put it like that?_ Way to remind Nadya that all her friends are vampires and would probably make it out of everything at least _mildly_ intact.

“So where is it?”

“Where is what?”

 _Really?_ “The Amulet of Nero.”

“Oh, well… about that.” _No,_ Nadya thinks in a panic — because nothing good ever started with _‘about that.’_

“You have it —” — _hello instant nauseating panic, my old friend_ — “— Cadence please tell me you have it.”

 _“Had;_ past tense.”

There’s not quite a word to describe the noise that grumbles out from deep in her soul but it’s certainly not a _whoop_ of joy.

More like an _eeeughh_ of… _urrrrghh._

Which is why she’s a little relieved her phone screen lights up blinding and interrupts them before she can start pulling her own hair out.

While Nadya grabs it to read the latest message, Cadence stands and pops his neck in two places. “I have a few calls to make myself, actually. Another tea?”

“No thank you.”

He leaves her with the office door open just a crack. 

In truth Nadya wants nothing more than to stretch out on the couch and take a power nap.

_No rest for the wicked._

She thumbs her screen unlocked to read a text from Adrian.

[TEXT]: It’s sunset and we haven’t heard from you in a while. Is everything okay? -A

Well — she managed to train him out of the _‘sincerely’_ at least.

[TEXT]: I’m surprised I dont have like 5000 txts  
[TEXT]: shes still asleep isnt she

[TEXT]: No. Her phone died. You didn’t answer my question. -A

[TEXT]: I’m fine  
[TEXT]: here w/ cadence

[TEXT]: Great news. He’ll give us the Amulet? -A

She doesn’t want to _lie_ to him. But there’s really no good way to soften the blow.

[TEXT]: :|

[TEXT]: What does that mean? -A  
[TEXT]: I showed it to Lily. She isn’t happy.  
We’re grabbing a car now.  
I’ll convince him to give it to us if I have to.  
Did you explain what’s at stake? -A

Nadya scoffs — kind of very rightfully offended. “No,” she says aloud, but she’s alone so her phone suffers her snark in silence, “I told him I wanted it for my Halloween costume. _Yes I explained what’s at stake,_ Adrian Raines. _Ugh.”_

So of course that’s the perfect moment for Cadence to return with confusion knit in his brow.

“Is everything okay?”

“Not really.” Nadya peels off her glasses and rubs her eyes. “Just — Adrian’s on his way. Tell me where the Amulet is and we’ll get out of your hair.”

She can’t tell if the pensive look on the vampire’s face is him trying to decide whether or not to help or something else entirely. All she can do is pray, really. Or hope Adrian can convince him. And if neither of those work maybe Lily can threaten him or something.

_They should have brought Jax along. Katana and all._

“Actually, send him somewhere else, would you?” Cadence rips off a corner piece of paper and scribbles an address down before handing it over. “That’s where I planned on heading anyway. And this way I won’t have to go into the explanation twice.”

He’s been nice so far; friendly and helpful. And Adrian trusts him — if she hasn’t brought that up enough times.

So why does unease start to tangle and knot itself in her gut?

“Or maybe we could all go there together.”

“Why not save the trip?” He brushes hair out of his eyes with a genuine surprise. “You said time was of the essence.”

“It is.”

“Then I don’t understand.”

“I just think it would be better to wait.”

“But —”

_Thunk. Thu-Thunk._

A knocking at the door cuts both Nadya and Cadence off at the same time — but Nadya’s pretty sure people knocked nearer the _top_ of doors.

_Thunk. Thunk. Thunk!_

With a long-suffering sigh, the vampire wheels himself around in his chair and makes for the door. “What have I told you about kicking my door? The museum said they won’t be paying for the third replacement.”

_THU—_

“Christ, Kathy!”

Cadence yanks the door open with more than a little force. The hinges creak and there’s the slight cracking sound of splintering wood — even with his back turned Nadya can see the disgruntled slump of his shoulders. “Great, now look what you’ve made me do.”

“Stop being so easy to mess with,” says Katherine as she enters; beaming immediately at Nadya around the towering blockade of a man. “He’s so fun to mess with, isn’t he?”

All the tension in her extinguishes like a blown-out candle. Leaves Nadya smiling because she didn’t even know how reassuring the sight of a familiar face would be until, well, she’s right there.

Katherine shoulders her way around Cadence and holds out her arms. “Bring it in!” And Nadya most definitely brings it in. Even if her hurry to hug the Nighthunter sends a small stack of papers scattering to their feet.

“Oops…”

Cadence groans. “It’s fine, it’s fine…” And he shoos Nadya away to pick it up himself.

Very little about Katherine seems to have changed over the last year. Though technically Nadya could say the same for herself. The hunter now sports a fancy scar along the edge of her jaw and she must have just recently given her hair a fresh shade of violet but she’s still _Kathy_ and it’s an honest relief.

 _Wait a second._ Nadya pulls back to hold her at arms’ length.

“I tried calling you before we took off from New York. Why didn’t you answer?” Truthfully, they thought she must have been out of town.

Katherine scoffs, mock-offended. “I have a life too, you know. I’m not always looking at my phone.”

“Indeed,” grumbles Cadence at their feet, “but last night you weren’t _‘having a life’_ so much as trying to break your own arm.”

What’s worse is that Kathy doesn’t try to deny it. She just laughs at Nadya’s suddenly pale expression. “Don’t worry kiddo,” she teases, “I was just taste-testing for a bartender friend. Had a little bit too much, you know how it goes. I thought I could arm wrestle a stone troll.”

 _Blink. Blink-blink._ “I’m sorry a who-what?”

“A stone… well you’ll see. C’mon Cade, pick it up later. We’ve gotta get going,” with a fist curled in his sweater she hauls the man up against his wishes, “don’t even worry about it. Not like the place isn’t still a historic hoarder’s nest.”

Nadya definitely agrees — but she’s too polite to do so out loud.

Hold on, though. “You know where we’re going?”

Cadence’s left eyebrow arches slowly. “You’re suddenly on board now?”

“Well —”

Katherine interrupts her with a finger and a quick smack to the vampire’s upper arm. He doesn’t even flinch. “Context, Cade, remember? Taller, stronger man tries to take you somewhere only he knows of in an unfamiliar city. What do you do, Nadya?”

“You kick him in the groin.”

“Exactly.”

He looks between the women in brief silence; but they aren’t exactly wrong. “Fair point. I’m sorry for making you feel unsafe, Nadya.”

“It’s okay.”

Katherine claps her hands together quickly. “Come on. I don’t really think you want to leave Raines undefended against Garrus for long.”

“Who is —” you know what, probably better that Nadya waits to learn, “— Lily’s with him, it’s okay.”

“Your friend the newbie vamp, Lily?” asks Katherine. When Nadya nods, though, she’s the exact opposite of reassured. The hunter barely gives her time to grab her purse before she’s tugging Nadya out of the office by her sleeve.

“Oh god — we have to go.”

“What’s the matter? Are they in danger?”

“No,” Cadence laughs behind them; the fact that he’s far more at ease than Katherine though doesn’t make Nadya feel any better, “they’re fine. But Garrus _has_ been perfecting a shooter to give my kind an actual buzz.”

 _Drunk Lily._ Nadya remembers her well… well enough to shiver bodily. Because drunk Lily was one thing.

Drunk _vampire_ Lily, though?

“Maybe we could hurry up a bit.”

* * *

 _If I’d known there were going to be drinks involved I might’ve not been so against it,_ Nadya thinks, and immediately foresees a great concern regarding the eventual state of her liver by the time she’s (hopefully) settled into a more peaceful life post-Gaius’ World Takeover 2020.

By the time the three of them make it to the _Graveyard Shift_ (which was, in her humble opinion, the height of tacky non-humor — and according to Kathy if she wanted to keep her tongue in her mouth she had better keep that thought to herself) Adrian and Lily are already there.

Lily hugs her first, then goes for Katherine with equal gusto. Cadence and Adrian, however, exchange nothing but a crisp businesslike handshake.

“I was glad to hear your name had been cleared,” the blond vampire says with a hint of shame. Then — watch out world — Adrian crosses the professional boundary and clasps a hand on his shoulder.

“Kamilah told me about how Vega tried to keep you from testifying. I can’t even begin to tell you how grateful I am that you risked daylight travel for someone you barely knew.”

“You helped me all you could. It was the least I could do.”

At the bartop in the very back a young woman dressed head-to-toe in black leather and lace whips out a (black) fan and flutters it rapidly. She eyes the pair bright and mirthful. “Good ghoulish gods, the sexual tension there is enough to feed a dozen succubi!”

They pull away from each other after a long and uncomfortable pause.

Then Lily’s tugging Nadya forward with maniacal delight. _“Ohmygod,_ Nadi’, come meet Ivy. She’s _literally_ the coolest person on the planet.”

Behind them Adrian splutters; “Wait, Lily —”

And she should really be worried when Katherine joins in; “Ease her into it — ah shit.”

Because _ease her into what, exactly?_

Lily stops them in front of Ivy’s stool. “Technically not a person, remember?” chides the stranger; and then things start to make a bit more sense.

What Nadya had thought were tattoos or maybe was a decorative grey bodysuit underneath Ivy’s clothes just… isn’t. It’s skin. It’s greying, veiny skin and the muscles beneath that Nadya can see with a little too much ease for her personal comfort. Yes, Ivy _is_ wearing black lipstick, but there’s not a whole lot of _lip_ for the _stick._ And while the way her eyes seem to _actually burn_ with a strange and pinkish flame is very cool and very up Lily’s alley, Nadya can’t really look at them for long without feeling like the long shadows cast in every corner of the bar are _watching her._

 _“Dude,”_ stage-whispers Lily while tugging at her sleeve, “Ivy’s a _revenant. Victorian zombie goth chick,_ Nadya!”

Ivy holds up a veiny finger. “Actually that’s a _bespelled_ revenant, sweetie.” And the only solace Nadya seems to be able to take right now is that when the woman smiles she still has a full set of teeth — though some look a little… pointy.

“We’re a little different because we still have our souls… they just don’t belong to us and aren’t in our bodies and will forever burn in some eldritch pit or another.”

Words that awful should never be said so cheerfully.

“But enough about me,” like she isn’t practically preening under Lily’s adoration regardless, “ever meet a _fae?_ This is Garrus; he owns the _Shift.”_

The revenant jerks her hot pink head behind the bar where the bartender has been devoted to messing with something out of sight — until now.

 _No,_ Nadya would have answered if she wasn’t having way too much new information thrown at her like a bag of big supernatural bricks, _I haven’t met a fae._ She hasn’t, she’s sure.

Since she’s just as sure she would have remembered meeting anyone equally pale — somehow glittering, with the same unnatural symmetry in the face that was both pleasing to the eye and unnerving in impossibility. With eyes as clear as the sky and actual pointy ears that definitely weren’t bought from Lily’s preferred cosplay crafters.

Yup; no way she could forget that.

This is Nadya we’re talking about, however, so she swallows down all of her (many — many) feelings about the current situation and turns on her heel to where Adrian has come to stand just shy of behind.

“I’m gonna need a glass of wine.”

Adrian shakes his head with a small laugh. Back the other way Garrus calls out a cheerful — and slightly Irish(?) so that’s a thing — “Coming right up, darling.”

“Just… _one_ glass though, Garrus.” Adrian feels the need to emphasize, even if its with a glint in his eye. “Trust me. She’ll try to go for the bottle.”

“I handle this crap the way I handle it, Raines.”

“Then don’t complain about the hangover this time.”

A beat. “Yeah fine, one glass only.”

For a bar in New Orleans at night the place is a little barren, but nobody else seems to mind so Nadya doesn’t think about it twice. It gives them more opportunity to spread out at the very least rather than having to lean halfway over the bar to talk to one another.

Ivy joins Katherine and Cadence in the crescent-moon booth closest to the actual bar. Freeing up stools for Adrian and Nadya — though Lily quickly pulls away to jog up a tightly-coiled metal staircase by the back door to, apparently, check on her charging phone and call up Maricruz.

“When did you add the second floor?” Adrian asks Garrus; who now is moving so fast Nadya’s pretty sure he’s getting a little blurry around the edges.

He doesn’t even pause to think. “We finished it a couple of years before the turn of the century. After you and your lady friend had such a hard time finding accommodations I took a real stock in the idea of places more… suitable to our folk.”

Adrian gives an “aah” of understanding, but if he thinks he can just _get away with that_ without being smacked in the arm he’s very mistaken.

“Ow?” He tries to look affronted down at Nadya — it doesn’t really work.

“You’ve _been here before?”_

“Briefly, yes, in the later 19th century. Why are you so surprised?”

She gives a little shrug. “It just doesn’t seem like your kind of scene.” Yes, the _Graveyard Shift_ is rustic, charming; antique. But it’s also dusty, rickety, and Nadya really doesn’t trust the way those stairs screamed through Lily’s every step.

“Well — yes and no. I enjoy this place immensely; you should have seen it back in its heyday.” He pauses; probably hopes Nadya will say something so he doesn’t have to keep going. But she knows a _‘but’_ when she hears one.

“But… we weren’t here for a good time. We were here on Gaius’ behalf to settle some… unsavory territorial disputes between two vampire families.”

“Who’s _‘we?’”_

His lips purse. “Kamilah and I.”

Garrus whistles shrilly behind them; breaks the chance for Nadya to go all melancholy before she even starts with a glass tumbler in front of Adrian and a wine on her end. “Thank you,” since she’ll _definitely need it,_ now.

Cadence clears his throat into his fist. “Now that we’re all caught up perhaps I should finish what we started in my office?” He looks Nadya level in the eyes. “I told you I no longer had the Amulet of Nero?”

Adrian looks between her and Cadence with a rising surprise. She hadn’t gotten to that part, exactly, in her texts… _thanks._

“What do you mean you don’t have the Amulet?”

“I thought that pretty self-explanatory.”

“Then why are we wasting time here?”

“I don’t have it because it didn’t provide what I needed.” And just like that he and Katherine are back on friendly terms. He swings an arm over the booth behind her and she accepts it with a sigh. “I had heard of the Amulet’s long history with vampires and thought that perhaps it had some sort of charm or hex that could prove useful to me.

“Objects have memories like people have memories. Only people — they live, remember, and die. Their memories are lost forever. But objects are a little like vampires. They just keep remembering.”

Adrian feels her still beside him. He reaches out to her; throw an arm around her shoulder, hug her; whatever gets spun on his roulette wheel of _Uh-Oh, the Human is Freaking Out Again._ This time, though, Nadya pushes his hand back. Touch is kind of the last thing she wants right now.

 _Why?_ He asks with his eyes.

Nadya looks away only because her own eyes want to give him an answer.

_Because that means I’m an object, too._

“All that collective history should have been compiled in the Amulet,” Cadence continues, “but none of the witches I hired could help me unlock it. I even prostrated to the Garden Elders, you know.”

Judging by the way their new friends all react Nadya thinks that wasn’t a good call on his part.

“Before they lost the single brain cell they shared?” Ivy asks with a derisive snort. Garrus gets a chuckle out of it at least.

“Indeed. But they couldn’t even…”

Why did he trail off into silence? Doesn’t he know nothing good ever comes of trailing off into silence when it comes to matters of the supernatural?

Cadence’s eyes go wide. If he had a beating heart — he definitely wouldn’t have it now. “Mary Mother of Christ. I think that’s around the time when the Elders pulled the witches from the Quarter.”

He looks between Ivy between Katherine between Garrus; all of whom have gone just as silent and still. Something haunting them behind the eyes just out of sight.

“Do you think the Amulet did something to them?” Adrian asks — and Nadya’s glad to know she’s not the only one royally confused.

The blond vampire nods. “Of—Of a sort. You see, last year’s _Mardi Gras_ was a bit… murder-y.”

“That was only a couple of weeks before the Awakening Ball — and my trial.”

“Lucky we made it out then.” He squeezes Katherine’s shoulder. The look on her face punctuates his optimism with a restrained barely.

“The Garden Coven — the witches of the city — their Elders went a bit…” Cadence _tsks_ for a delicate turn of phrase.

And the hunter at his side doesn’t bother. “They went cuckoo bananas. They used a born necromancer, summoned a bloodwraith using the bones of an equally cuckoo bananas Nighthunter known as the Bloody Hand, and thought they could control him in the form of a vengeful spirit to kill the city leaders and install themselves in power.”

 _And she thought being chased by Vega was terrifying?_ Well, it was. But on some level Nadya’s kind of glad she didn’t have to touch any of _this_ with a ten foot pole.

“I know I’m gonna regret asking this…” _in fact she regrets it before she even finishes,_ “but why would they do something so… awful?”

“Fear is a powerful motivator.”

Ivy drums her nails on the table. “One of the Elders, Millet, was really handy with a deck of tarot. But the thing about prophesy — if you don’t have the gift, you just don’t have it. So the forces you call upon sort of… call upon you right back.”

Cadence’s whole world is being rocked; Nadya can totally sympathize. “The Amulet would have been the perfect conduit for Millet’s foresight. I can’t believe I didn’t realize it then.”

“Would it have saved anyone’s lives?” Garrus challenges him to consider it. Cadence does, but no answer at all is all the answer they need. “Shame.”

“So they used the Amulet of Nero and got a vision that drove them mad with… fear. I’m missing something.”

The gears are turning in Adrian’s head so fast steam might start squealing from his ears. “Whatever had been seen would have been tied to the Amulet’s magic.”

He and Nadya lock eyes. The same thought at the same time.

_Whatever they foresaw would have had to do with vampires — with the Amulet — with Gaius._

Cadence snaps his fingers, eyes alight and a half-smile of understanding starting to grow on his lips. “The darkness coming has something to do with vampires!” Though when the weight of his words settles in, they’re decidedly less a revelation and more of an omen.

“Oh dear…”

“Before we get— _ahem_ —any more ahead of ourselves,” Adrian cracks his neck and mulls over how best to go forward, “Cadence… what were you trying to open the Amulet _for?_ You said it wasn’t _useful,_ what do you mean?”

The man shrugs. “It was an object with great importance throughout much of recorded vampiric history. If you’ve forgotten that’s… kind of my thing. I hoped whatever lie within — whatever had the kind of power to draw us to it — might be able to jog a memory or two.”

“But it didn’t.”

“I’ll never know. I never got it open.”

“So you got rid of it?” Adrian’s voice raises more than a pitch or two. “If the Amulet couldn’t help _you_ personally it wasn’t worth keeping safe?”

“What? No. But it took quite a bit of money to acquire, none of which was mine.”

As he starts to understand where Cadence is going with his story, Adrian leans forward with his elbows on his knees.

“You took a loan from Carlo. Which means it was left to Isadora when he passed.”

_Who are Carlo and Isadora?_

“Speaking of…” Katherine looks between Adrian and Cadence expectantly. It doesn’t bode well that Cadence shifts as if trying to inch away at the same time that Adrian takes a long drink.

The Nighthunter groans in frustration. “You guys are idiots!”

Cadence splutters — waves an arm at Nadya from afar. “Well I wasn’t exactly _expecting them,_ was I?”

“I don’t care! That’s the first thing you should’ve done when you found out he was in town. But let me guess — you made tea.” Which is, unfortunately a fact the vampire doesn’t deny. “God, you are such a damn stereotype sometimes.

“And what about you?” She rounds on Adrian next. “You’re smart… ish. More responsible, I guess. Tell me you’re not as dumb as he is. Tell me you _called her_ at the very least.”

From her edge of the booth Ivy looks like she’s taking _way too much_ enjoyment in this. When Adrian’s head hangs she squeals in delight and claps with the promise of more yelling.

“I had more pressing matters to think about.”

“So that’s a no.”

“Correct.”

“That’s a _no,”_ Katherine repeats; growing louder with every word, “to telling the most powerful vampire in the city about your little trip — and with not one, but _two_ vampires staying in her territory for longer than a fucking layover?”

Some clarification on the rising panic bubble blowing up inside her would be _awesome,_ but Nadya has a feeling she’s just not gonna get one.

“Forgive me for caring a little more about the danger of _the most powerful vampire in the world_ more than Isadora de la Rosa.” Adrian almost snarls — Nadya swears she hears the glass in his grip creak ever so slightly.

Judging by the look Kathy gives him she doesn’t regret one syllable; not a single one.

“Its not _my_ forgiveness you’ll need.” She grabs Cadence’s arm and turns it at an awkward angle to look at his watch. “Lucky for you _Flechette_ just opened.”

 _“‘Flechette?’”_ Nadya asks — and can’t help but feel like an owl at this point.

Katherine snorts. _“Flechette_ is the front for the city vamps; and they’re headed by Isadora de la Rosa.”

But this is a good thing. They know where the Amulet is. Sure, it sounds like there might be a little arguing along the way but… surely this _Isadora_ woman will be totally understanding, right?

“You don’t have to come, Nadya.”

She looks at Adrian and really can’t believe what she’s hearing. “Of course I do.” Her eyes narrow. _You know what I went through for this._ “Why would you think I wouldn’t _want_ to?”

“Because _Flechette_ is a fetish club.” _Oh._

Well… yes, yes she’s still going. She’s been to worse places than a _fetish club;_ the Shrike, the Shadow Den, kind of… how bad could it really be?

“Well, at least Lily will enjoy it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And so begins the NOLA arc! There was a lot I ended up writing for this that I had to cut out because it was more me having fun with the crossover than actually adhering to the plot, so I’m thinking about posting those in the drabble collection once they’re touched up a bit. For those who remember in _Circumstance,_ Cadence and Isadora didn’t exactly leave things on the best of terms. I’m pretty excited to show you more of her in the next few chapters! Comments and critique would be fabulous. Thank you for reading!


	9. The Matriarch

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cadence reveals the last person to hold the Amulet of Nero was Isadora de la Rosa; unfettered mafia boss and matriarch of the New Orleans vampires. And she isn't happy about a couple of out-of-towners wandering around her territory without permission.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **chapter content warnings:** alcohol, violence, sexual paraphernalia, implied sexual undertones

Some might say Lily enjoys it a little too much.  


Before they even step foot in _Flechette_ they have to stop no less than five times to get her to calm down.

“Calm down — _calm down?”_ The last time Nadya saw her like this was after Maricruz’s birthday, and no matter what Jax said she’s still not unconvinced a couple of the Shadow Den’s donors weren’t _on_ something; if you catch her meaning.

“How could I possibly be calm at a time like this? Don’t you realize what’s happening Nadi’? We’re living a real life _True Blood_ fantasy right now.”

“Yeah, see — don’t even _think_ about mentioning that once we’re inside, please?” Cadence tugs at the collar of his shirt uncomfortably. “They know every reference, no matter how obscure. There are no strikes in a place like this; if you bring pop culture into their world they _will_ kick us out — and that’s only if Izzy’s feeling generous.”

“Why do they care?” asks Nadya.

“For the misconception of it all. _Flechette_ may be a cover, and Izzy is certainly no dominatrix. But most of their money these days comes from loyal customers and members. The de la Rosa dynasty is accustomed to a certain amount of wealth and status. Risk that… and it isn’t uncommon for you to go ‘missing.’”

Adrian’s surprise is quickly clouded by narrowed eyes and a stern frown. “That’s against your Accords, though, surely.”

“In the same way unauthorized Turning is against the rules of your Clans.”

That sobers Lily up pretty quickly. She and Nadya exchange glances; both trying to hide their worry from the other. But Lily pulls her a little bit closer by their linked arms and Nadya doesn’t exactly stop her.

Admittedly Nadya would feel a _lot_ better if Katherine had joined them for this, too. But only claimed humans were exempt from what Cadence describes as a pretty lax ‘feeding policy’ beyond the club’s front doors. _“And no,”_ the huntress hadn’t even given Nadya the breath to ask, _“that’s not a thing Cade and I have done. I like my freedom a little too much for that.”_

He looks her up and down warily; eyes lingering on her very healthy and very not-bitten neck. “You _are_ claimed, aren’t you?”

“Yeah.”

“I don’t feel a —”

“I said _yes,_ Cadence,” she lifts her bracelet and lets the compass-esque charm of Clan Sayeed catch on the nearby neon lights. The hardest part is not letting it feel like a ball and chain weighing her down and reminding Nadya of her problems back home.

She’s got enough of those in front of her at the moment.

He acts as their local tour guide along the way; pointing out places and spaces every once in a while with a fun little factoid about the city’s histories; the ones both human and supernatural. It’s a good front — for most of their trip Nadya’s so interested in listening and imagining that she almost doesn’t notice what Cadence is really doing. It doesn’t hurt that the vampire sounds so sure of himself, too.

But then he’s halfway through a story about some stone troll (still yet to be seen, still yet to be believed) that tried to run for city Mayor and that’s neither distracting nor interesting. It’s just talking for the sake of talking.

“You’re rambling,” Nadya realizes — and realizes at the same time it was a much more astonishing revelation in her head than it is out loud, “like… _nervous_ rambling.”

The blond scoffs. “What? If you weren’t interested all you had to do was —”

“Nope—I hear it too.” Lily’s eyes narrow, and beside her Adrian looks like he’s playing everything back on a mental tape recorder. “Trust me — I’ve lived with it long enough. That’s some Grade A tongue-twisting. Why’re you nervous?”

“I’m not… going to be able to convince you, am I?”

His blue eyes flicker to Adrian; some kind of Older Vampire Solidarity thing, but if Nadya and Lily are suspicious then Adrian sees no reason not to join in. Broad shoulders slump in his sweater and Cadence gestures for them to keep walking.

“I don’t hide that I have a history with the de la Rosas. When I first arrived in New Orleans the laws were far more lax and by all accounts Carlo let me off easy for coming onto his territory in secret.”

Lily’s eyebrows raise. “Even if you didn’t know what you did was wrong?” And Cadence nods.

“Even then. I served my dues and paid my debts. In his last days I would have even called him an acquaintance — which is saying quite a lot if you ever met him.”

“I did,” Adrian nods in agreement, “and that’s… high praise.”

“Isadora took over the Family affairs in the middle of the _Mardi Gras_ crisis. We worked together then because we needed to — and because Izzy’s a cunning woman.” A strange look glazes Cadence’s eyes behind his lenses; something Nadya might almost call _nostalgic._ “She has an acute sense of smell for power; when it shifts, where it goes, and how to attain as much of it as she can. A short while after Kathy and I returned from New York she paid me a visit at my office.”

“Not for tea, I’m guessing?”

Of course not. “The overall purpose of it was a goodbye. All debts, no matter how small, were cleared. She made it clear she would have nothing more to do with me — and by extension, neither would the Family. The New Accords bind us legally and magically; through them I will always have a say in matters concerning the vampire community here. But beyond that…”

His words trail off into the night air but they don’t need to be heard for the visitors to understand them clearly. _Beyond that, Cadence is risking a lot to bring them to_ Flechette; _to Isadora._

It’s a knowledge that clearly makes Adrian uneasy. “Once we arrive, if you need to leave — it might be better that way.”

“Without me there’s nothing tying you to the city. The moment you step inside she’ll already know when you arrived. And the first thing she will want to know is why you didn’t declare yourselves until hours later. You may be spared, Adrian, for your title up North. But I don’t see Lily walking out without at least a decade of service to the Family dragging her down.”

Cadence pushes up his glasses with a resigned sigh. “This is the best way. But I know the risks. Don’t worry about me.”

His smile is strained and doesn’t last long — quickly he turns and resumes leading them on but this time in a stony and stifling silence.

Nadya feels a squeeze on her arm and finds Lily’s eyes completely devoid of their earlier delight. It’s a look she recognizes; one similar to the moments before their descent into the Council Chamber.

Just like then, she squeezes back. Their pinkies linked in a silent promise to one another; _I’ll keep you safe._

They go down a block or two more before _Flechette_ comes into view around the corner. Actually — it’s pretty hard to miss. It stands at the end of the street, borders the last of the buildings distinct to the French Quarter. This whole time Nadya’s been under the assumption that without Cadence guiding them they might not even know what to look for.

But now she’s pretty sure she could have found the place without her glasses.

There’s no ignoring the club bass pounding so loud it almost shakes the pavement. Like he reads her mind Cadence immediately explains in a lowered voice; “Fae wards seal the sound around the block. Works great for the music… and any other noises that might draw attention.” Thick black metal bars seal off the windows. Nadya and Lily exchange half-chuckles; reminded of the city.

Two men in suits stand on either side of the entrance. Nadya watches one with a clipboard in hand undo the hook of a velvet rope and allow a couple inside. She pretends the dark stains on their clothes illuminated by the neon lights are fake campy homemade blood. For her own sanity.

A large rose hums with electricity over the second floor windows. Below it; _Flechette_ in large blocked capitals.

“What’s it mean in English?” Lily asks with a nudge to Adrian’s shoulder. Because of course he knows French. Nadya once watched him spend an entire work evening on a conference call with some biotech company in Lyon. He’s actually pretty good.

“It means _dart,_ or _arrow,_ something along those lines.” But the translation is nothing without the answer, so they all turn to the nerd.

He surprises them with a shrug. “Hell if I know. It’s always been the name of Carlo’s business. It was a photo house when I came to town; specializing in ones you definitely didn’t want to show your mates on the front lines. Catering after that, hired performers after the second war, and an escort service briefly when the dot-com boom hit nationwide. The club was actually Izzy’s idea after she came back up from Miami. A small group of our kind pitched in to own one together for an unlimited feeding source. It’s definitely been their most successful venture.”

“All of which had to do with sex; in one form or another.” Adrian states dryly.

“Sex sells, baby. Even sexy caterers.” Lily bumps her hip into his — he’s so taken aback that he nearly stumbles off the curb. Nadya doesn’t even try to hide her laughter.

The hairs on the back of Nadya’s neck stand up alert as they pass the queued line. Envious eyes drilling holes right through her; judging her and Lily and Adrian and Cadence, too. All of them like they’re on a shiny silver platter.

She makes the mistake of looking back when a scoff catches distant in her ear. The offender couldn’t be older than a college kid — obviously shirtless underneath his black leather jacket and for a moment she sees something glinting near his upper lip and it almost makes her stumble. But a quick look into his eyes and Nadya notices right away they’re the wrong shade of red. Too bright, too wide, too _human._

He blinks and the colored contact shifts in place.

“Nadya, come on.” Adrian calls; and Lily tugs at her sleeve until the pair of them fast-walk passed the rest and through the sleek black door held open for them begrudgingly.

She looks into the doorman’s eyes, too. Those aren’t contacts.

“What happened back there?” Lily whispers at her side. Up ahead Cadence starts to lead them down a short hallway and in the dark humidity Nadya has to make a conscious effort to remind herself she’s not going to find the Baron at the end of this tunnel. “Did that kid say something to you?”

Nadya blinks back to reality. “What — no, no. He… he was wearing colored contacts.”

“So? I have every color of the rainbow back home. You’ve seen me in ‘em.”

“Yeah…” and Lily’s talking sense; they both know it — but the knowledge doesn’t shake the unease from her bones.

“What was it then?”

“He was doing it to look like one of them.” _One of you._ “Did you see his face, Lil’? He was so _young.”_

He makes Nadya think of who she was at that age. How little she knew about the world — not even counting the vampires, the Ferals; the scary truths hidden in the dark. She’s a good person — she surrounds herself with good people. But the _Vegas_ of the world; the _Lesters_ and the _Priyas_ and anyone else who would even consider the awful act of Turning someone that young? They’re all too real.

 _When will I start to see those memories,_ Nadya wonders, _how long until they tear me in two?_

Lily’s steps falter; she hesitates. “Are you sure you can do this right now?”

 _It doesn’t matter whether she_ can _or not._ “It’s something I’ve gotta do anyway.” Luckily they follow Cadence and Adrian through a doorway covered by a velvet curtain shortly after; so she doesn’t have to keep talking about it.

From the outside it definitely didn’t look like _Flechette_ could hold this many people. The building has several stories but only one floor — she has to crane her neck up high to see lights in iron-wrought fixtures all the way up top. Between the floor and ceiling various cages hang on heavy chains; scattered for space and each one with a dancing individual — a big one a little too high up for Nadya’s comfort sports three.

Servers in different states of undress — but all bearing the same thick black collar and silvery rose-engraved pendant — flit back and forth through other similarly curtained entrances with trays. Trays of drinks, one passes with three glass bowls of multicolored pills, and _oh look_ that one has a fancy assortment of plugs… the use for which Nadya will very happily keep from her head.

Some members are dancing, others are grinding — all of them care about themselves, the person(s) they’re with, or the ones closest to them giving a show. She had expected to feel a lot of unusual things here but _relief_ was not one of them. Not that she’s complaining.

But even though Nadya can’t tell by first glance who here is human and who is vampire; she knows for a fact the last time she was in a room with this many of them things were drastically different for her. She wasn’t a _Bloodkeeper_ back then. Well — she was, but none of this was happening to her.

So it comes as no surprise when she locks eyes with someone—certainly a vampire—and feels something wet in her mouth that definitely isn’t there. Slick and succulent and all she has to do is bite — harder this time…

Nadya forces her eyes down and lets Lily weave her through the path Cadence carves for them. “Do you think this place is campy,” Lily calls over the music only growing louder the deeper in they go, “or do you think _camp_ is based on places like this?!”

“I think we need to hurry up!”

“Spoilsport!”

Everything’s going just great until she’s yanked to a halt.

With one hand as a blinder Nadya shakily raises her eyes to see what’s happening.

Just up ahead Cadence and a short and balding man are locked in heated debate. The music mostly drowns them out but she catches an angry “bastard” and Cadence’s accented “demand you let us through” before it all dissolves back into noise.

 _“Adrian,”_ Lily hisses, and even that makes Nadya feel a little fuzzy, thoughts that aren’t hers starting to filter in through her best friend’s touch. Lily somehow keeping her grounded and making her feel less _present_ at the same time, _“we gotta get her somewhere — I don’t know, just somewhere not here.”_

 _Somewhere not here_ sounds amazing. Yes please!

The sleek black shoes step out of Nadya’s sight — there’s a _thud_ and the nearby laughter and conversation goes quiet. Which, of course, somehow makes Nadya’s situation feel worse.

Adrian holds the smaller man up by the front of his ruined suit; feet dangling a good foot from the ground and up in his face, words she can’t understand because she never mastered the art of lip-reading hissed between his fangs.

Cadence tries to push him back but Adrian snaps something that gets him to back off. He jerks his chin in Nadya’s direction and for a moment she holds his red-eyed gaze and doesn’t… _quite_ recognize who she’s looking at.

And that has nothing to do with her pounding head. It has everything to do with Adrian — and Adrian alone.

Sweat beads on Nadya’s brow and stings in her eyes — she’s five solid seconds from passing out when the curtain Baldy is guarding gets pushed back and a woman dressed like she’s ready for a Victorian funeral stands as barrier. She observes each of them silently — or Nadya doesn’t see her lips move anyway — before her eyes fall on Cadence and grow hard.

Adrian drops the doorman and gestures for the two of them to come forward. It’d be a real freakin’ help if she could hear anything right now.

It helps that once they’re off the main club floor and the (surprisingly sound-muffling) curtains are closed behind them she finds immediate relief. She can hear again (and not the echoes of memories — all the better) but boy does her head hurt.

While Lily rubs the small of her back, one of the collared servers offers her a tray with a glass of water and three white pills.

_“You have no reason to worry, they are for the headache; nothing more.”_

The woman speaks out of sight which is ominous enough but Nadya really could care less. She’d do anything to stifle the pain, the memories; and practically launches the pills into her throat before chasing them down until the water glass is empty.

“Th—Thank you.”

 _“Of course,”_ Nadya hears the shifting sound of cloth on leather while she rubs her eyes with the heels of her palms, _“I would have you collect yourself before we proceed.”_

She goes to lean against Lily — _where’s Lily?_

“Wait, what do you mean pro—ceed…”

A larger and rougher hand than Lily’s comes down on Nadya’s shoulder. Strong enough to hold her back; keep her at bay. And when everything, including her full range of sight, finally comes back…

She really wishes it hadn’t. She’d like to take her thanks back too, while she’s at it.

Isadora de la Rosa sits as a blooming rose on an onyx canvas; dark waves of hair almost blending in except where the shine catches the light. The brightest part of her (and the room at large) is the crisp white of her pinstriped pantsuit. She watches Nadya with an unreadable deadpan and a cigarette between her long fingers. With all the black in the room the smoke can’t hide as it curls up into the air and dissipates.

Her desk, large and not unlike Adrian’s back at the office, is flanked by the Victorian funeral woman and another, much younger girl dressed similarly. She can’t be more than Nadya’s age. Maybe closer to the human boy back outside in line.

Nadya could do without the three large suited bodyguards holding three stakes to her three friends’ hearts though. If there was one thing she had to complain about, it would be that.

“You’re really leaning into the whole _mafia_ vibe now, I see.” Cadence quips, and there’s a little quirk of his lips as the (much shorter) man behind him struggles to keep the blond held back with the stake right over his heart. It wavers and ends up more near his stomach.

He throws a look down behind him. “Looking well, Tony. Be a peach and push up my glasses for me?”

‘Tony’ hesitates — then slowly pushes them up from where they were perched dangerously on the tip of Cadence’s nose.

“Thank you.”

“Shut it.”

It’s not unlikely that the man restraining Nadya is a vampire too; but there’s no harm in _trying_ to get herself free, right? She wiggles — the grip tightens so hard her knees almost buckle. “Ow ow owowow!”

“Get your hands off of her!” Adrian barks; and judging by the shadow that flickers over the dark, crow-like features of the vampire holding him, he’s giving her the best fight of everyone.

Lily immediately goes for some part to bite — Nadya’s got some serious respect for that. But not if it costs Lily her life—er… undeath.

And all the while Isadora de la Rosa just looks on. Not with amusement, not with malice; more bored than anything. The perpetual exhaustion with everything she must witness reminds Nadya, achingly, of Kamilah.

Cadence sighs. He’s the only one who hasn’t bothered with even the slightest escape attempt. “Adrian, stop.”

“Listen to him, Mister Raines,” Isadora finally says; but instead of looking at him she’s focused on snubbing her cigarette in an ash tray so black Nadya almost thinks it’s the desk, “you aren’t exactly giving the finest impression of your so-called revered _Council_ of vampires. Compose yourself — and die with dignity.”

 _I’m sorry, do_ what _with dignity?!_

She raises two fingers as if to signal, but in a panic Nadya cries out before she can bring it down to act.

“Wait—please Miss de la Rosa, _please_ don’t hurt him—them—anyone!”

It would have come off less whiny and beg-y if Nadya had some plan to distract Isadora, all of her vampire mafia guards, all the vampire mafia fetishists on the other side of the curtain, and get everyone out alive and intact. But she doesn’t — so the look the vampiress gives her — the one that screams _‘I had no respect for you to begin with but you’ve definitely lost some regardless’_ — is justified.

Finally Isadora raises a single brow. “Well?”

“W-What?”

The younger of the women near her desk giggles under her shroud. The other shoots her a look — maybe? She definitely looks that way and it definitely shuts her up.

“I assumed you had more to your impassioned plea,” de la Rosa leans back in her chair, “but if that is not the case…”

Nadya opens her mouth but all that comes out is a long, deep, and extremely _masculine_ groan. _Oh thank god that wasn’t her._

“Why are you pulling this, Izzy?” Which is apparently not a nickname that’s public knowledge because _oh dear god they are so going to die right now._ “This is a stunt your father would pull.”

Isadora’s features flicker in obvious annoyance. “Did anyone ask _you,_ Cadence?” She snaps. “Tony, cut out his tongue.”

“Tony don’t you dare.”

Tony probably would — if he could reach that high. “Didn’t I tell you to shut it?”

_“Anthony.”_

“Y-Yes ma’am!”

Calling it _chaos_ would be a kind understatement. And Nadya can’t even tell if Cadence is doing anything on purpose; all of these little irritants that make one woman laugh and distract another and fluster Tony and make Isadora look ready to—

Nadya blinks and Adrian’s a blur — then he’s a blur with a stake that he hurls to the floor before taking his captor’s head in both hands. He doesn’t look like Adrian again and the sight of it has her more terrified than anything that’s happened so far.

“Let. them. go.” He grits in even measure. “Or I rip her head off.”

To her credit Isadora takes the threat coolly and in stride. “Will you now?”

“We came here willingly, Isadora. None of this hostility is necessary.”

“We shall have to agree to disagree on that.”

“Let them go and we can talk — like _civilized people.”_

Slowly she stands, does up the button at the bottom of her blazer and smooths down her skirt. More _Wall Street_ than kinkfest. “What about this has given you the impression I want to _talk_ about anything? You have power, Raines, I’ll give you that. So I forgave you for slighting me once. But you know what they say… Happens once, shame on me. Happens twice… ensure it doesn’t happen a third time.”

Lily squirms. “That’s… not a thing people say, like at all.”

_“Lil’.”_

“Well it’s not!”

But thankfully Isadora is too fixated on Adrian to have noticed.

“Examples have to be made,” she continues, “and what message would I be sending my Family if I were to let you wander my city unpunished?”

Adrian growls. “There were extenuating circumstances.”

“There are _always_ extenuating circumstances with you.” But Isadora doesn’t meet Adrian’s eyes as she says it — Nadya catches her looking away from Cadence with a sigh. “I have a responsibility to keep me and mine safe.”

 _“We_ aren’t the threat.”

She answers with silence and pursed lips. The tension in the room shifts uncomfortably — and just like that Adrian seems to realize he’s the one holding a woman hostage. Conflict paints thick across his face as he takes in their options, the faces of the foreign vampires watching his every move.

Resigned, he lets the de la Rosa vampire go. Steps back with hands held up.

Nadya lets out a breath she didn’t know she had been holding. It sends her into a coughing fit and draws his attention — distracts Adrian just enough for the older of the veiled women to come up at his side with a new stake sharp at his ribs.

But it’s with an unparalleled relief that she sees _her_ Adrian again in his concern.

“Nadya, are you okay?”

She nods and swallows air like it’s in short supply. “Fine and dandy. Are _you?”_

He doesn’t answer.

Only now they’re back in the same predicament and this time without any element of surprise. And she does _not_ want to die in a _fetish club in New Orleans…_

At least not without telling Kamilah how sorry she is.

The dark rug muffles the _tap-tap_ of the Southern vampire’s heels as she approaches Adrian; closes the space between them. “If you’re going to threaten anyone, Raines, next time it had better be me.”

“Noted.”

She clenches a fist at her side but has the willpower not to raise it. “Why are you back in my territory anyway?”

Behind her, Cadence swallows audibly. Before Adrian can even open his mouth she’s turned her back on him. Knows now he’s not the one she should be questioning.

The pained frustration of _decision_ furrows Isadora’s dark brow. “You idiot… can’t you see, Cadence, that _this_ is exactly what I meant when I said I wanted you far away from us? You invite trouble — worse than that, you are oblivious to the fact.”

His broad shoulders slump. “You’re the one who brought out the stakes.”

“I gave you what you wanted. Why do you insist on complicating my life? Why could you not take your lead and leave the Quarter?”

He recoils, affronted. The thought hadn’t even occurred to him. “What? I — this is my home just as much as it is yours.”

“I think we both know that not to be the case.”

“Izz—”

“No, not you,” she presses a finger to his lips; Cadence falls silent, “someone else… _you.”_

Nadya’s nerve drops out of her stomach when Isadora decides to round on _her._ Nadya does _not_ handle herself well in front of powerful women in business attire, and if her current track record is anything to go by she’s not exactly going to be their saving grace here.

“Me?”

“You, yes. What was your name again?”

She feels like she’s eaten fancy cheese; but she endures. “Nadya, I’m Nadya.”

“And why do you keep such unusual company, _Nadya?”_

Well that’s not what she was expecting. “How do you know it’s not the other way around?”

“Because you don’t look like a pet _human._ At least not like the ones out there.” Isadora waves a hand towards the main club. “And because you seem to have an acute understanding of what is happening here. You have not dissolved into panic, and you wear the claim of a vampire not present with us on your wrist.”

The heavy hand leaves her shoulder and Isadora approaches sultry; catlike. She reaches forward and takes Nadya’s hand in her own — strokes her thumb over a knuckle and for a moment she almost thinks the vampiress is going to kiss the back of it.

Instead she turns Nadya’s wrist up and examines the way the dim lighting catches her bracelet. Isadora speaks low, now; so low Nadya strains to hear her.

“Is Kamilah Sayeed here, as well? How is she doing these days?”

“You know Kamilah?” _Of course she knows Kamilah. Why are you even surprised?_

Isadora doesn’t break her hold. Nadya knows exactly what will happen if she tries to take it upon herself to separate them though. “That was not an answer.”

“No — No she’s not here. She stayed in New York.”

Isadora seems _amused,_ which in Nadya’s opinion is a welcome change from _murderous._ But they definitely can — and probably do — exist in the same house.

“Why are you and your friends in my city?”

Nadya tries to look over her shoulder to Adrian. Hoping; praying he could somehow give her something to say. Because all she can think is the truth and _telling everyone the truth isn’t exactly part of the plan._

Adrian sees her panic. “She’s got nothing to do with this, Isadora. Leave her alone.”

“See the more you say that, Raines, the more I think you’re not telling me the truth. So, Nadya, I’ll ask again.”

“Isadora —”

He’d probably do better yelling at a brick wall. She finds it all too easy to ignore him; let him fade into the background as she leans down and close to Nadya’s face. Tilts her chin up with a dark and manicured fingertip.

_“Why are you and your friends in my city?”_

Vampires can’t hypnotize people, right? Like, Adrian and Kamilah would have made it a point to tell her _if vampires could hypnotize people, right?_ If Jax and Maricruz had shared some innate vamp-y hypnosis secret with Lily, then Lily would have _told her, right?_

Nadya can’t say she’s ever been hypnotized before so she isn’t certain but wow does it feel like Isadora’s trying to hypnotize her. Making her look deep into her eyes, red and practically glowing with pupils narrowed into slits and the way her voice curls around her words is… is really pretty and…

_Holy mother of crap can vampires hypnotize people?!_

While Adrian struggles to peer over Isadora’s shoulder to see exactly why Nadya’s gone so quiet, Cadence doesn’t have to. He’s had enough of whatever the heck this is, apparently, and pushes Tony off of him and into the nearest wall with startling ease.

“No — this is _too far,_ Isadora, she’s _human_ for god’s sake!” He gets to them before anyone else can stop him. “Get out of her mind before you do any damage.”

Not that she listens. Maybe she _can’t_ listen. Nadya’s definitely having a harder time hearing the room around them so suffice to say it’s the same for Isadora, right?

_Get out of her mind._

Oh god. _Get out of my mind. You can’t see what’s in there._

She feels frozen, trapped and bound in a vice of her own skin. But it isn’t something she’s never felt before. She has, and rather recently too. The only difference is Jameson connected them at her temples. Isadora de la Rosa does just as well using only her eyes.

_Get out, please. You can’t see._

_Why can I not, Nadya? Show me._

_I just can’t. You — You won’t like it._ She doesn’t like it. She doesn’t like it one bit.

_How about I make that decision for myself?_

“What are you standing around for?” shouts Lily. “Get her away! Nadya, can you hear me? Nadya!”

But Cadence hesitates; hands hovering just over them. “If I break the connection while Izzy’s pressing in… it might not go well.”

Lily looks to Adrian in a panic. “Dude!”

“Cadence, it’s okay. Do it.”

He frowns at Adrian; his glasses slip down his nose. “She’s a powerful psychic, Adrian. I don’t want Nadya to get hurt.”

“She won’t be. Break them up.”

_Can someone break us up, please?!_

_Why are you resisting me? What are you hiding?_

“But —”

“Nadya’s not the one who’ll be hurt! Just—listen to me and _do it!”_

Convicted and terrified, Cadence places his hands on the backs of their necks and _pulls._

* * *

When Nadya opens her eyes she knows, objectively, that there’s been a passage of time. But the usual sluggishness, the feeling like she’s emerging from a pit of black sludge isn’t there. Somehow, she was both conscious… and not.

The carpet is itchy under her palms and Nadya might have shattered her tail bone into a thousand pieces. It sure feels that way. Adrian holds her halfway upright with a hand firm in the middle of her back. She’s grateful that he’s both worried and cautious enough to keep from touching her directly; and instead his hand hovers just shy of her face.

“Nadya, can you hear me?”

But that’s Lily’s voice — oh, Lily’s there too. She speaks again but slower; “How many fingers am I holding up?”

She squints. Everything is still blurry.

“I don’t… I can’t…” then it hits her, “you’re holding up my glasses, aren’t you?”

They fall into her waiting hand. When everything comes into clear (if smudged with a stampede of fingerprints) view Nadya looks up to see Lily beaming.

“She’s in the clear.”

“No,” comes Isadora’s growl from somewhere not in her immediate reach—thank god, “none of you are.”

It’s a little relieving that Nadya wasn’t the only one thrown on her butt. But Isadora’s recovery is faster and that’s a big yikes. She pushes the worried faces and reaches of her subordinates aside and stands on her own. She tries to smooth herself back to her previous perfection but the damage is done — there’s no changing the tension coiling tightly inside her, or the wild uncertainty in her eyes.

Something happened — Nadya’s foggy on exactly _what_ but she knows that much. Just like she knows the look Isadora’s giving her.

_She knows._

A ragged groan breaks the silence and all eyes turn to Cadence who was somehow _also_ thrown off his feet; only he doesn’t have anyone to check up on him. Nadya gives a pleading look to Lily and immediately she’s at his side. He’s groggy, but despite the shaking in his arms he can hold himself up. He’ll live — long enough for her to thank him anyway.

Isadora has never been the type to be at a loss for words. Nadya can see it now; decades of being loud, being harsh; whatever it took to be respected in the world. Whatever it took to carry on the de la Rosa name and legacy.

_The city hadn’t even given her the chance to mourn him._

“You shouldn’t be possible,” she whispers, and Nadya laughs — _says the vampire._

Adrian looks between them with growing confusion. “What happened?”

She pats at his arm and he gets the hint; helps Nadya and her knocking knees to stand. She’s tired of being looked down on by them, believe it or not, so if she can look Isadora in the eyes then she’s going to.

“You wanted to know why we were here, in New Orleans,” Nadya speaks slowly to keep her voice from betraying just how shaken up she really feels, “well now you do.”

When Nadya closes her eyes she can see it; the Amulet of Nero. In flashes of printed-out pictures on Adrian’s office wall and resting cupped in Cadence’s palms and held dangling by the chain up to the light of this very office; reverent — and solemn, too. _A gift from someone given up a long time ago._

All that through Isadora’s eyes.

Nadya sighs and rubs her aching temple. “She doesn’t have the Amulet.”

Neither Adrian nor Lily hide their shock. “How do you know?” he asks. But how can she reasonably say _she just does?_

When Isadora steps forward one of the veiled women reaches out to try and stop her. Nadya can feel the energy— _uneasy-uncertain-doubtful-fearful-of-the-unknown_ —coming from the Southern vampires like waves of endless nausea. But her hand is batted away. Isadora is the only one certain of anything right now.

“You’re right,” she answers in measured caution, “the Amulet is no longer in my possession. But I can tell you where it is… and, should you be willing, try and help you get it back.”

Murmurs of confusion ripple out from the other vampires. Isadora shrugs them off — her intense focus on Nadya strong; stalwart.

 _You’ve seen what’s at stake. What could_ —will— _happen if we don’t._

_Yes, I have._

Nadya nods. 

“We could use all the help we can get.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was really excited to bring Isadora into more light here in _Destiny_ in a way I didn’t get to in _Circumstance._ I hope you enjoy her! Comments and critique would be fabulous. Thank you for reading!


	10. The Elite

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nadya finds a kindred soul in Taylor Hunter, who was also living a perfectly normal life before being shoved into the chaos of the supernatural. Later, the good news is the Amulet is still in the city. The bad news is they'll have to bid for it... and bidding wars here can be deadly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **chapter content warnings:** language, alcohol

“I don’t know guys,” she lingers just on the edge of the morning sunlight; already warm at her back, “I can’t say I’m entirely comfortable leaving you with the people who literally just tried to kill us.”  


Unfortunately though they’re a little short in the way of _other options._ New Orleans is only gonna get hotter and sunnier and while ideal for a mysterious club, _Flechette_ standing on its own and away from the rest of the crammed-together French Quarter buildings doesn’t lend to a safe return to the _Graveyard Shift._

Still — Nadya has concerns and she’s gonna voice them.

“I think we’ll be fine.” Though Adrian could try a _little bit_ harder to reassure her. But he’s been distracted ever since the de la Rosa vampires lowered their proverbial weapons. Given how he acted — how cold and cruel he was in the face of enemies — Nadya can’t say she wouldn’t be a little distracted in his shoes. “Whether we’re in her good graces or not, Gaius still poses a threat to all of us regardless. And Isadora seems quite keen on keeping her way of life intact.”

Lily’s boots catch and drag on the concrete under the soles. “Can’t say I’ll be getting much sleep, but she’s kinda our only choice in the way of, _ahem,_ late-morning snacks.”

Nadya understands and offers her a consoling smile. Lily tries to return it, but when she feels the catch of her fangs on her lower lip she practically zips them up and throws away the key.

She’s seen Lily do some strange things with the blood bags back at the apartment. But Nadya has yet to actually see her… you know, and on someone’s _neck._ Nor is she keen to add it to the list of things she’s seen and been mentally scarred by.

Well if they’re okay with it she really doesn’t have a reason to keep doubting, then, does she?

Nadya peers over Lily’s shoulder to the main floor of the club. With the lights on the place is far less goth-chic but she doesn’t have to squint to see anything anymore, so that’s a plus.

“Keep an eye on him, will you? Just in case…” Nadya asks of them, prompting both vampires to turn and follow her gaze to where Cadence sits. He’s still hunched over one of the dark glossy tables, scribbling away at a piece of paper. Just like he’s been doing ever since Isadora managed to bring him back to consciousness.

After Cadence had separated Isadora’s psychic link he was out. Like… _out out._ Like _actually worried the woman to the point where she was ready to close the club and run him to some local voodoo man_ out. And everyone was relieved when he finally came to of his own volition but there was no denying he had come back… strange.

Or maybe _strange_ is just the feeling Nadya gets when she looks at him now. Maybe no one else feels it. Maybe she’s just lost a few more marbles.

Of course Adrian and Lily agree. Nadya gives each of them a hug farewell but right before she takes her leave the familiar sound of Isadora’s heels comes up all too quickly.

The woman stays well out of the way of the daylight, just like Adrian and Lily. She looks wearier now than when they first met. Objectively Nadya knows vampires don’t age. But Isadora looks like she’s trying to challenge that theory.

“I’ve called on someone to take you back to the Quarter safely,” says Isadora brusquely, “it may no longer be night but there are numerous factions within our borders that can act at any time.”

“Seems… inhospitable.” Adrian comments. He doesn’t miss the sharp look thrown his way.

“Perhaps. But at least we declare ourselves to our enemies.”

“And you’re implying…?”

“That I trust my allies with certainty. From what I’ve come to understand about your Council, that is not something you are familiar with.”

How has it been five whole freaking seconds and already every anxiety Nadya has about leaving is back with a vengeance?

But Lily sees this and waves her off. “Go while you still can. I’ve got this. You should hear some of the dirt Mari and Jax pull out during a fight.”

If she doesn’t leave now she never will, so Nadya mouths a final _“good luck”_ and pushes through the doors out into the thick morning air.

Immediately she tries to fan herself with her hand, and all that does is push hot air at her.

_“Yeah, it takes some getting used to.”_

Nadya can’t help it — she almost jumps out of her skin in fright. “Don’tdothat!”

She rounds on the young man, who can’t be older than she is by a year or more, and who apparently finds it _funny_ to give a poor girl a heart attack. If she had her purse she’d swing it at him. The stakes would at least leave a bruise.

He holds his hands up in surrender. “Sorry, sorry. Though I’m gonna need some explaining on how someone _that jumpy_ can hang out in _Flechette_ all night. Doesn’t quite add up, you know?”

He has a point which is rude enough. Worse that he has an incredibly disarming smile directed right at her. Nadya busies herself with tying her hair up to cool off her neck. “After a while you learn to expect what moves vampires are gonna pull. People, though? They’re still too unpredictable.”

“You know,” he laughs, “that’s fair and valid. And pretty true, actually…”

He’s not passing her. And Nadya has the distinct impression if she starts trying to make her way back up the street he’d be right there at her side; tagging along.

“You’re the person Isadora called, then?”

“Taylor Hunter,” he finally introduces; they shake hands light and brief, “but if you didn’t know my name… how’d you know I was who you were lookin’ for, Miss Nadya?”

Nadya pushes up her glasses with a shrug. “Just Nadya, and… Your eyes. They don’t look human.” They’re too bright, especially taking into account he’s got the sun at his back, and shine far too many colors. Though if Nadya’s being honest she probably wouldn’t have noticed if she hadn’t met Garrus and Ivy beforehand.

Quickly Taylor ducks his head and Nadya wonders if she’s hit a nerve or something. He certainly looks red in the face. “Shit — really? My bad… They should go back to normal in an hour or so.”

Because she totally knows what that means? “Uh… okay?”

He jerks his chin back towards the heart of the city. “C’mon, we’re meeting a friend of mine to grab everyone coffee. It’ll be a fun story to pass the time.”

_Talkative, isn’t he._ And there’s a traitorous part of Nadya that knocks on her head one too many times with a _hello, who the heck are you to judge missy_ but what Taylor doesn’t know won’t hurt him.

* * *

It’s admittedly very strange to be telling the story she’s telling with new faces taking in her every word.

“That went about as well as I thought it would,” Katherine announces while reaching over and plucking a bottle from around the other side of the bar, “seems like you were lucky, though, and caught Izzy in a good mood.”

“That’s her _good mood?”_ Nadya can’t help but look skeptical. But judging by the looks she’s met with, Katherine isn’t exaggerating.

“Yeah yeah, de la Rosa’s got a chip on her shoulder, what else is new. What about this Amulet you were talkin’ about; does she have it?”

Taylor scrunches up his face and gives a backhanded smack to the solid chest beside him. It had taken Nadya a second to remember the other Nighthunter but once he greeted her by way of _‘muggle’_ it was easy. Apparently Ryder hadn’t been putting on airs when he had shown up to Raines Corp. all devil-may-care and bad-boy. That was just who he was.

Not that she doesn’t recognize the somewhat melted look in his eyes when he pretends to be wounded — she’s seen it well enough when Maricruz thinks Lily isn’t looking. “Rook’, you gotta stop beatin’ on me in front of company.”

The man beside Nadya blows a mousy brown curl from his eyes with a laugh. “Feel free to ask one of us to do it.”

“No one asked you, Cujo.”

Katherine rolls her eyes. “Tell me I don’t have to apologize for them?”

Nadya just laughs and shakes her head. It’s been easier than she expected to feel comfortable around Taylor and his friends. They’re _just weird enough_ to be funny. And, admittedly, she’s kinda enjoying not being the odd one out for once.

Too bad Nadya’s natural sense of worry doesn’t allow her to enjoy peace for long. “No — Isadora doesn’t have the Amulet anymore. She had to give it up to pay off some of her father’s debts, I guess?”

Ryder grunts. “Yeah, to th’Smoke.”

“And ‘the Smoke’ is a person?”

“Well… yes and no.”

All eyes turn to Vera, the friend of Taylor’s they had met up with on their coffee run. It’s still a bit weird for Nadya to constantly be pulling her shirt away from the back of her neck from sweat and see someone in full-length silk gloves — but since no one else is going to comment on it Nadya has a feeling doing so would be rude.

Vera is already hard at work pouring over ledgers of some kind; Nadya recognizes those kinds of spreadsheets from work. She carefully balances one black binder each on her knees. “I brought everything dated from last March. There’s just a lot to get through. But if you’re sure Isadora’s telling the truth I should be able to find it pretty easily.”

She looks up and offers Nadya a warm smile. “Don’t you worry, we’ll get it and have you an’ your friends back up to New York in no time.”

“Thank you,” and she looks around as she says it, “all of you, really. I don’t think I can say it enough.”

Though if the looks she gets are any indication… she might have already.

Unfortunately _‘pretty easily’_ turns into one hour, then two, then Taylor is shaking Nadya’s shoulder gently out of a doze with a bemused little smile.

“Maybe you should get some rest? The research part isn’t the most interesting.”

“No, no I’m okay.”

“Then take another coffee run with me. I have to swing by work anyway… stretching your legs might help.”

His borderline-overly friendly attitude makes a bit of sense when one takes into account the weirdness of their mutual situations. On their way back from _Flechette,_ Nadya had been hesitant to open up and dig into the nitty-gritty of it no matter how interested Taylor had appeared. But now, with a bit more time on their hands and more than the cliff-notes shared between them, she can’t help but feel relieved that she’s not the only one who feels like they tripped down the proverbial rabbit hole.

“Okay okay, tell me if you get _this_ though,” Nadya pauses to swallow a bite of her pastry, “when there’s, like, a whole pile of crazy going on and everyone is all freaking out and yelling at each other and you just —”

“You just end up _standing there_ because nobody bothered to give you any context?!”

“Yes! It’s so annoying!”

“Not to mention potentially _fatal.”_

“Oh don’t even get me started on _fatal._ I’ve never so much as jaywalked before and now I’ve come face to face with…” it takes her a second to both balance her coffee and count on her fingers but she manages, _“four_ vampires, all of them over _two thousand years old._ All of which who’ve threatened me at some point or another.”

Taylor hisses through his teeth. “Big yikes.”

“That’s an understatement.”

Though she regrets bringing it up not a moment later. Not just because she keeps pushing that inevitable existential crisis down until their work here is done. But also because one of the four is Kamilah, and if she thinks about Kamilah she thinks about how much she misses Kamilah, and if she thinks about how much she misses Kamilah she might actually collapse into tears.

“You really care about her, don’t you?”

The needle scratches on Nadya’s thought-record. When she looks up Taylor has a furrow in his brow and a painfully sympathetic look directed at all of her being. _Unsettling_ doesn’t even cover it.

She’s getting tired of people poking around in her head without her permission.

Though before she can get so much as a word in, Taylor seems to come back to himself. Where he was, Nadya can’t say, but she knows the signs when someone can’t entirely stop themselves from doing something. “Sorry,” he clears his throat awkwardly and won’t look her in the eye, “that was super outta line.”

“Yeah, a bit.” But what’s the use in denying it? “You’re not wrong though.”

“What’s her name?”

“Didn’t read my mind that far?”

Taylor shakes his head. “It’s not really mind-reading so much as… emotion-reading? Or like real-deal empathy, I guess. My father says it’s some unique _halfling_ thing. Fae can share a lot more with each other than humans can, but because I’m not full on Legolas, I only get a part of the package.”

Nadya knows that look. She’s seen it in the mirror enough times.

“One of those bonuses you didn’t ask for.”

“Exactly. Not that it hasn’t come in handy,” he quickly backtracks, “I think it saved our lives back last year. But an instruction manual would’ve been nice — all I’m sayin’.”

_Preaching to the choir._ “Her name is Kamilah. She’s…” He can tell, though. Does she have to say it aloud?

When Taylor smiles at her it’s a sad thing. _No, she doesn’t._

Although when might she have another chance to talk to someone who understands? Because she tried that with Kamilah — and they both know how _that_ went. Not Adrian, or Lily, or even Jax could have even the slightest bit of empathy for what Nadya is going through against her will. And here’s Taylor thrown into her lap with a little bow on top; not only someone who gets what it’s like to be on the outs of all this supernatural crap but also a literal empath.

How can the universe begrudge her for taking advantage of that?

She inhales deep and shaky. “I—we—she and I kinda had a fight right before we left New York. I think it was our first one…”

Nadya remembers reading somewhere that therapy works because telling a stranger your problems is a lot easier than telling your friends; they don’t have any stake in your future, or have sides they need to choose. _Well try telling a therapist about the secret group of vampires who run Manhattan,_ she had thought skeptically. Now, she takes that cynicism back.

While she recounts the events of her fight with Kamilah, Taylor just listens. He nods, and _‘hmms,’_ and asks for clarification here and there but it’s more than just proving he’s listening. Nadya tries not to notice but the way his expressions change with her tone and words… he’s feeling everything she is. And boy, does she feel bad for him for it.

They end up walking around in nonsensical circles until finding their way to the only familiar place Nadya knows; Jackson Square. Taylor casually gets them to one of the old wooden benches outside the church. A small four-man jazz band plays off in the shade to a growing semicircle of tourists. 

She sips the last dregs of her coffee cold and too-sweet. “I get what she meant and where she was coming from, I do. But I also can’t help but get this feeling like all that I saw in my visions were things she wouldn’t have told me no matter how much I asked… And I know _why,_ obviously, but…”

But there are too many places in her whole explanation that Nadya’s said _‘but’_ and even she’s starting to get irritated by it.

“You know,” Taylor swings an arm around the back of the bench, “just because you understand her side of things doesn’t mean your side isn’t just as important. You can fight with someone you care about and have both of you be right _and_ wrong.”

“Then how do we ever stop fighting?”

He laughs dryly. “Oh, fuck if I know. Nik and I get into it constantly about his jobs. He’s always trying to keep me from helping him out but he’s probably more at risk when I’m not around. At least I have magic — even if I suck at using it right now. He’s smart, and strong, and really good at what he does… I just can’t help but worry one day that won’t be enough.

“I think there are a lot of things in Kamilah’s life she regrets; things she thinks will change your opinion of her — that’ll make you hate her or something. And a lot of relationships are like that. There’s just more baggage to sort through with you two.”

_Wow, thanks genius._ “I won’t hate her though. That’s what I can’t seem to explain right.”

“The best thing you can do is what you’re already doing. Keep explaining it, keep being there, and she’ll realize in her own time what that means.”

Nadya watches him carefully. “Is that what you and Ryder did?”

“Sorta — but we’re working on it.”

It was supposed to be a simple errand run but Nadya can’t shake the feeling there isn’t exactly a search party out for them. She’s not complaining! If the universe is listening she is _not_ complaining. It just makes the return to their very dark, gruesome, and potentially apocalyptic reality all the more difficult. Luckily she’s getting used to dealing with difficult things by now.

When they finally return to the bar business is booming; thank god Taylor gives her a nudge to pick her jaw up off the floor or else she’d probably have offended half of the patrons. Can she really be blamed though? It looks like freakin’ _Comic Con_ in here.

There’s a shrill whistle near the bar at the back and they both catch sight of Cal waving them over. “Everyone’s upstairs!” he has to practically shout over a gaggle of taloned women adorned in feathers, two of them seemingly in heated competition for his attention. “I’d head up but —”

“Oh no you don’t!” Garrus appears over his broad shoulders as if from nowhere. “You’re half the selling point of these _sweet swamp_ shots, Bayou-boy. Sorry my not-so-mortals!”

Taylor and Nadya both watch with equally pitying looks as the fae pushes Cal into the fray. “One day he’s gonna realize I didn’t do him any favors getting him this job,” Taylor mutters close to her ear, and Nadya tries to throw up a sympathetic thumbs-up before they manage to get to the metal staircase and up away from the chaos.

There are way too many people in this apartment. Taylor takes this as an opportunity to literally fall into Ryder’s lap; Ryder is just forced to take it without argument or fight. But Lily has a spot saved right in between her and Adrian which Nadya takes all too eagerly.

“Girl, look at you,” Lily pinches her cheek, “you finally got some sun! Now lemme soak some of it up.”

While one vampire clings to her arm, though, the other is quite pointedly keeping his distance. Nadya turns and gives Adrian a cautious look. He smiles, she would expect nothing less, but the strain shows in little crinkles at his eyes that definitely weren’t there before.

Wordlessly she rests her head against his arm. Adrian tenses — she doesn’t take it personally — but relaxes in the same breath. Rests his hand on her knee in a silent thanks.

Movement draws Nadya’s attention to a small kitchen island where Katherine balances herself on a stool, and where Cadence stands beside her with his arms crossed tightly over his chest.

“Hey Cade,” she gives him a little wave, “feeling better?”

The vampire looks at her… and that’s it. There’s still a bit of frenzied confusion in his eyes. Confused, she shifts her attention to Katherine — the huntress just shakes her head.

“Oh good, y’all are back.” Vera walks in from the adjacent room and offers a weary little smile. “Good news is we found the Amulet, and its still in New Orleans.”

But what sentence ever started with good news that didn’t include…

“And the bad news?” asks Taylor; his tone a tad too defeatist for Nadya’s liking.

Ryder growls. “The bad news is I gotta put on a fuckin’ monkey suit.”

The _actual_ bad news is that the Amulet of Nero was put up for auction by the former Lady Smoke. And apparently no amount of money will convince the auctioneers to take it off the docket. “Trust me, Kamilah and I pooled together a substantial sum,” Adrian sighs, “and they didn’t even flinch.”

Vera nods. “If anything that only encouraged them further. Goblins are awful little sneaks but whatever business they sink their claws into is their reputation; they’ll live and die by it. In trying to buy out the Amulet you’ve shown something that could have easily been written off has the potential to get them a lot of money.”

_Goblins — she said goblins._ Okay. That’s a thing we’re accepting now. “So we need this thing to keep the world from ending and… we have to _buy it?”_ In what world is that fair?

“Isadora has agreed to put her Family’s wealth behind our bid,” Adrian explains, “which should be more than enough for us to ensure we aren’t outbid. And this way we don’t attract Gaius’ attention by riling up the supernatural community. The less enemies we make, the better.”

He knows the question on the tip of her tongue. Nadya knows it, Lily knows it too. But she won’t ask it because their lucky streak has so far not been entirely consistent.

_What if they already have Gaius’ attention?_

They’ll burn that bridge when they get to it.

* * *

_BEEP._

“Hey Kamilah, it’s me… again. Sorry, I let the last three messages go too long and I’m not really sure if they still send when that happens? So… here I am.”

Nadya looks down at her bracelet and sighs. She nearly loses her balance — heels and gravel walkways don’t mix well together — but manages not to sound like a total loser on the call. “At risk of this becoming the fourth mistake, uh, I’ll be quick. Adrian said he kept you up to date with what’s going on down here, so this isn’t... About that… I just wanted to say hi, and I hope you’re doing well, and… and let you know that I miss you.

“If I had a choice I wouldn’t have left things like we did. I think we both know that. And the second I’m back in New York I want to try and work this out. For… for us, y’know? And I think you do, too.” She sniffles. “You still have your read receipts on for texts. Anyway, gotta get going. Wish me—us—luck!”

She hangs up there because even for Nadya there’s only so many times she can make herself look stupid until she makes the turn from _charming and quirky_ to _downright annoying._

Four is probably pushing it.

She wobbles her way back to the others smiling a little _too_ wide, but thankfully no one comments on it. Vera offers her a clunky gold ring but the second Nadya slips it onto her finger it seems to fit like it was sized and all. “Magic ring?”

“Magic ring.” Lily nods, delighted to be agreeing.

“Too bad Cal couldn’t come with this time,” Taylor elbows Ryder’s side gently, “he deserves the chance to not have to sneak through the kitchens.”

Ryder, however, doesn’t seem to share the sentiment. “I feel like a damn sellout,” grumbles the hunter as he adjusts the cuffs of his borrowed suit. Adrian raises an eyebrow his way. His suit is the one being borrowed, after all. “I said what I said.”

“Yeah, nobody cares.”

Katherine tugs up the top of her dress and brushes her hair away from her shoulder. “We get in, we bid, we get the Amulet and get out. Any more time wasted and someone, somewhere is gonna recognize someone and nobody wants that.”

She rounds on Nadya and Lily both. “Don’t go anywhere on your own, don’t talk to anyone _especially_ the people who are nice to you, and I’ll tell you right now that none of these snakes can make your wishes come true.”

They don’t know whether to take her seriously or not. Lily’s laugh is a few shades shy of offended. “I think I know how to have fun.”

“This isn’t fun, baby fangs, it’s _Persephone._ The last time we were here Cade —” she jerks her thumb to the vampire; who quickly snaps out of his own little world and blinks in confusion, “— ended up nearly getting gored by a Minotaur in illegal cage fighting; a fight that was supposed to be carried by Cal’s prepubescent _Teen Wolf_ baby brother.

“Everyone through those doors has been playing the game of money and power for decades, some for centuries. They know there are worse things to lose than your life.”

Nadya pulls Lily tighter and links their arms. “Read you loud and clear.”

Unfortunately threatening-if-considerate speeches aside, the likelihood that they’re going to be the reason something goes wrong is… statistically pretty high.

At least they do the noble thing and own it.

“Everybody ready?” Vera looks around, checks for rings, and smooths down the front of her dress. “Then in we go.”

Lily snickers in her ear as they all join the line to enter _Persephone._ “I’m having middle school field trip flashbacks.” She whispers, and pulls back to Nadya’s equally amused grin.

To say the inside of _Persephone_ is beautiful is definitely an understatement; but it’ll have to do while Nadya tries to catch her jaw as it hits the floor and starts running. She thought Marcel’s castle was beautiful? It still is — but it was so obviously an antique; a relic from a bygone era. This is different. This is a kind of beauty not taken from one place or thing. It’s everyone; all the infinite colors and shapes and _species_ of people that mill around her.

It’s kind of a shame that she’s come to associate beautiful things with how close to being threatened or killed she’ll soon be. It kind of dulls the spark of the place.

Nadya and Lily both crane their heads up, up, four floors up to the swooping ceilings above and their glittering chandeliers — which Nadya has an inkling aren’t made of glass at all but real magical energy in bright playful lights. All around the edges of the landings people gather, leaning and chatting and drinking in that uppity way people with money do. Like even all of this splendor bores them; everything meaning nothing.

A hand falls on her shoulder and Nadya has to stifle her yelp — unlike the first time Taylor startled her she now feels comfortable with reaching out and smacking his arm. “Stop giving me heart attacks!”

Judging by the bright and definitely inhuman glint in his eyes he definitely did it on purpose.

“It’s all kinda epic, huh?”

_“Kind of?”_ Lily scoffs dramatically. “This is the single most epic place in the entire universe!”

Ryder passes them all and rolls his eyes. “You should see Toronto.”

But this time, all overzealous Lilyisms aside, Nadya has to admit she agrees. “It’s… a lot. More than I ever thought I’d see…” And she’s been seeing quite a lot these days.

“Come around next year for _Mardi Gras,_ ‘cause this is nothing.”

At first Nadya doesn’t recognize the woman without the sheer veil over her features, but when Lily and Adrian don’t ask why a stranger is leading them up one of the swooping twin staircases she realizes Isadora’s sent one of her daughters to collect them.

Tony and an unfamiliar vampire stand guard on either side of a circular booth and table that looks like it was made for the de la Rosa Matriarch alone — sleek black stone polished so pristine Nadya catches the woman’s reflection before actually looking up at her face.

Adrian steps aside and allows Nadya to slide into a seat first. Isadora seems to barely notice them. Instead her attention is focused solely on a large piece of curling parchment that — nope, that’s not a trick of the light — the ink is actually moving like an invisible quill is scratching notes right in front of her face.

“Is that the registry?” Adrian asks, and Isadora slides it to him with a furrowed brow.

“Indeed. Word must have been leaked out by a few of their underground sources. The preemptive bids on the Amulet are starting to climb.” The vampire looks to Vera as she speaks. “Whatever has the new Lady Smoke interested enough to show her face around our nefarious sort is worth quite a hefty amount.”

Taylor squeezes Vera’s shoulder — it isn’t until he tenses that Nadya realizes he’s holding the gloved woman back.

“I’m here to help my friends,” she growls out in reply.

Isadora doesn’t look amused. “Try telling that to New Orleans’ elite.”

She’s been under the impression everyone was sticking together, but it seems the fancy-pants de la Rosa booth is for vampires (and human guests) only. But Taylor and Vera leave shortly after to where she spots Ryder cradling his flask like a security blanket in a far less fancy booth on the other side of the main floor.

Silently Isadora moves the barest inch; just enough space to fit both Cadence and Katherine on her side. Instead he clears his throat and volunteers to grab the drinks, and nearly runs into a pair of waiters in his haste to _not be there._

Adrian rolls up the magic scroll and puts it aside. “How long until the first lot comes out?”

“It will be showcased at the hour,” Isadora raises a limp wrist with a black card in hand, “which won’t be long from now. Are you prepared for a bidding war? I do hope you brought a second suit.”

A stunningly beautiful fae approaches with a small wooden box. They unfasten the lid and allow the vampiress to slide the card in, offer up a “thank you for your contribution,” and go off in search of the next card to accept.

But _second suit?_ Doesn’t that get Nadya’s attention. “Why would he need a second suit,” but why is she asking Isadora when Adrian is right there, _“why would you need a second suit?”_

He shifts in his seat uncomfortably. “From what I’ve been told, bidding wars here… are a little messy.”

The vampiress snorts softly. “Money is valuable, but this is New Orleans. If you made it as far as the interior of _Persephone_ you ought to have more to offer than wealth. Bidding wars can involve anything from shows of strength to tests of skill and intelligence. Two centaurs had a proper race on the lawn once.”

The more words she says the less certain Nadya feels. It leaves her tangled up inside and actually holding her stomach with a groan.

“Please tell me you’re gonna offer up your business acumen.” And she actually physically can’t look at his apologetic face so Lily goes above and beyond and pushes it away and out of sight.

“That’s why we needed as much for our initial bid as possible.” Adrian tries his best to console her. “It’ll be fine. I’m sure it won’t even come to something that drastic.”

_“I thought I told you to stay the hell away from me!”_

She’s a tiny human and Adrian is a hundreds-of-years-old vampire, so he probably doesn’t find her shaking both fists at him to be a scary thing. But it makes her feel better and that’s all Nadya cares about. Well, that and the look of confusion-meets-panic Katherine throws her way.

“Was that —?”

“Scooch scooch _scooch please and thank you!”_ Nadya forces the vampires to let her out and follows the Nighthunter as she rushes to the railing to try and find Cadence in the crowd below.

_“Something’s upset you, I just want to help.”_

_“Being stalked is pretty damn upsetting.”_

Thank god the railing is there to catch her because Nadya’s breath is knocked from her lungs. Adrian and Lily are at her sides in an instant and thank god for them, too, because they look just as shocked and that means she isn’t imagining things. She isn’t imagining that voice.

Katherine comes up alongside them, her grip white-knuckled and harsh against the ornately twisted metal bar.

Down below there’s a bar in the middle of the floor on a slowly rotating dais. Some of _Persephone’s_ patrons skirt away from the display before it turns into a fight — and it looks like that won’t take more than a wrong word or touch. But most of them are greedy for more than money, hungry for more than fine wine and foods. They want blood; that’s why they’re here.

Cadence smacks Valdas’ hand away before the man can reach for him. He looks wild like a startled animal; backed up against the bar top and looking frantically for a means of escape.

“You’ve repeatedly ignored my requests not to come to my workplace, you send me flowers I don’t want and cannot refuse, and now you — you _show up_ here, of all places?”

Valdas watches him with an uncharacteristic distress. “Cadence, you’re upset. You aren’t thinking clearly.”

“I’m thinking clearer than I have in years.”

The vampire practically spits the words through his clenched teeth. But that doesn’t make them any less strange in nature.

Valdas steps back. “And what, pray tell, has brought that on?”

In that moment Cadence’s frantic eyes find Katherine up above; his relief is visible even from a distance. Unfortunately the Trinity vampire is so close it can’t be denied. Has him turning to find the thing that managed what he could not in calming the other man in his fear—rage—mania.

He recognizes Katherine slowly then all at once; sweeping his eyes over the onlookers until they land on Nadya.

“Adrian,” she reaches blindly back behind her; feels his hand close tight and steadfast around hers, “I really hope you brought that second suit.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don’t go far — today is a dual-chapter update! Comments and critique would be fabulous, as always. Thank you for reading!


	11. The Auction

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Amulet is one bid away, but they aren't the only vampires willing to pay whatever cost. Valdas and Isseya have their own ideas about ensuring Gaius' victory... or is it their own? It's hard to tell.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **chapter content warnings:** language, violence, blood, alcohol, choking, dissociation

Taylor reaches the pair of vampires before the rest of them can make it down the stairs.  


He approaches with an authority one wouldn’t expect to see from someone as human-looking as he is. 

“Is there a problem here?” He doesn’t look at Valdas when he speaks — it’s immediately clear he couldn’t give less of a damn what the man has to say. He only cares about Cadence.

Taylor reaches out and places a tentative hand on the taller man’s arm. “Cade, are you okay?” But he doesn’t get an answer.

When Valdas recovers from the shock of being interrupted, he doesn’t come out on the other end nearly as caring as he’d sounded before. “This doesn’t concern you, halfling.”

But Taylor’s the type to take anything, whether it _‘concerns him’_ or not, and stick his nose in it regardless.

“Back off, man. I think it’s pretty plain he doesn’t want you around.”

“He doesn’t know what he wants. Get out of my way.”

“Touch me and see what happens.”

With a scoff the vampire reaches for Taylor’s shoulder, and Nadya almost trips in her haste because she’s seen the way Valdas can get when he’s angry. But even the barest touch and she watches in startled awe as Taylor’s shoulder… _sparks?_ Whatever it is it gets Valdas to back off.

“First one’s a freebie. Next time I’m gonna let my trigger-happy boyfriend up there go to town.”

So behind him Valdas watches, uncharacteristically silent as he takes in the sudden ease Cadence feels at the presence of his friend. As Nadya and the others push their way through to the bar she sees the barest shadow of doubt in his eyes before it vanishes without a trace. Replaced by cool nonchalance and an all-too-familiar smug smile.

Only it’s directed a little higher than Nadya’s glare.

“Adrian, you’re looking well.”

Anger flashes over Adrian’s face and he actually draws his fist back ready to swing. “Don’t,” and when Nadya grabs his elbow she knows if he really _wanted to_ she would have just been hurled along for the ride but thankfully it’s enough to stop him, “he’s just baiting you.”

“If he thinks he can just _stand there_ and get away with kidnapping you —”

The smallest furrow creases in Valdas’ brow. “Did I not ensure her safe return?”

“You think that justifies it?!” Adrian practically roars. Around them more and more guests and eager bidders turn away from their conversations and card games to watch the unfolding events.

But if she doesn’t get to yell right now neither does Adrian. It’s only fair.

Taylor gives her a panicked look. “You guys need to _cool it_ or they’ll kick us out.” _Calm him down or something,_ his eyes scream. And in this Nadya hates it — like really _really_ hates it — but she has to agree.

“We can’t risk it Adrian, please.” Because there’s no question as to why Valdas is here; why Isseya is probably somewhere slithering in the shadows. Which means they need a game plan, like, yesterday. _“Please, Adrian,_ come on…”

But Adrian is still tense under her touch. “He’s not worth it.” Though _that_ she says loud enough so more than just the vampires can hear her. “He’s too pathetic for that.”

It would have been nice to see him look anything even on the spectrum of _shamed_ but Valdas just quirks his brow slightly. “Tactful as ever, Miss Nadya.” Then, voice lowered slightly; “You look in good health.”

“Yeah, no thanks to you.” She darts a quick look behind him. “Where’s Isseya?”

“Why do you care?” Valdas asks, genuinely surprised.

“Because she has a funny habit to trying to kill me.”

“There needn’t be any bloodshed tonight — or ever again.”

“You two are the ones who keep resorting to violence.” She can still feel a phantom of the pain where she’d all but been dragged by the hair…

Valdas chances half a step forward; Nadya refuses to trust the false _regret_ in his eyes ever again. “I told you, Nadya, that going forward my acts will not entirely be of my own will.”

“Like I’m supposed to believe you; like you haven’t lied to me over and over again?”

“Perhaps, but where words can lie I’ve found that memories have no choice but to reveal the truth.”

What — does he want her to look into his head again; to push Adrian aside and take his hand and see some hidden truth? No way.

Nadya’s brow furrows, resolute.

“If you were really worth trusting you wouldn’t need to lie at all.”

The vampire’s sigh weighs heavy on his shoulders. He doesn’t get the chance to lie to her again.

The clanging of a gong rings high over their heads and echoes through the center of the club manor-house. Now they _really_ need to get going. Nadya jerks her head for Lily to help her pull Adrian back. Eventually — a little too late in her opinion but better late than never — he eases up. The sharper edges of his eyes seem to smooth out.

He shakes his head as if clearing a fog. “I’m sorry, I just…”

“We’ll talk about it later.” But despite her smile Nadya taps him with the back of her hand. “And we _are_ talking about it later, Adrian.”

It’s a threat as much as it is a promise. He’d better believe it.

“C’mon, Cade,” Taylor tries to coax the man forward with a little push; and Nadya’s pretty sure she’s not supposed to hear the next bit but she’s too close not to catch when Taylor mutters under his breath; “what’s up with you lately, man? You’ve been like this for a month now…”

“It’s nothing.” Cadence replies just shy of a whisper.

“It doesn’t feel like _‘nothing.’”_

“Then maybe you shouldn’t go poking around in my emotions.”

“I can’t help that. You’re like a bullhorn in a church.”

They almost make it to the stairs — and a waiting, arms-over-her-chest doesn’t-know-yet-if-she-wants-to-hug-him-or-strangle-him Katherine. _Almost._

“It was not my intention to cause you such distress… _Cadence.”_ Valdas calls at their backs; he says the name like it’s acid on his tongue but every other word is sincere enough to make Nadya’s heart hurt in an odd way.

She’s pretty sure if it weren’t for his friends practically forcing him forward Cadence might have actually turned back. Even if only for a moment.

But the only one who does is Lily — and that’s just to give him a finger Nadya doesn’t approve of. But this once she’ll just keep her mouth shut.

Before they get back to Isadora, Lily holds her behind from the others. Adrian is too lost in his own thoughts to notice. Taylor throws them a raised eyebrow, but it’s all good.

Thankfully, her best friend keeps her voice to a low level. The fae with his black box is still skirting around the edges of the booths. They must have something to do with the auction. “Firstly, you make some bonkers friends.” 

“You know _you’re_ my friend, right?”

“My point stands.” And yeah, fair, Nadya will give her that. “Second, if Gomez is here there’s no doubt Morticia is somewhere nearby. But what if that means…”

Thankfully there’s no _Addams Family_ analogy equivalent for the hellspawn of all evil that is Gaius Augustine, but Nadya presses a finger up against Lily’s lips anyway. “Don’t… don’t say it.”

On some level all of them probably had that same thought during their miniature confrontation. It’s inevitable.

Lily kisses her finger aside. “You know what I mean, though?” And she sneaks glances about as subtle as the hulking Minotaur _stomp-stomp_ ing his way across the bar floor down below.

“Yeah, I do. But I don’t think he’s here, Lil’.” _I would have felt him._

All the way across that long long table where he couldn’t be denied. No matter what he looked like, Gaius didn’t seem the type to see an event as splendorous as this and find himself content to hide away from the spotlight. “It’s his scene, but I think if he were here we would have known it by now.”

“What, we’d be on our knees worshiping him or something?”

Nadya laughs dry and humorless. “No — we’d be dead.”

They arrive back to the booth in time for the lights cast off from the chandelier to glow a rich white-blue. Isadora unfurls the ever-changing parchment of lots and bids and states the obvious; “It’s beginning…” And suddenly there’s a whole new kind of tension hanging around the exclusive vampire club table.

The first lot is a statue that the auctioneer claims is made from solid ruby. It definitely looks that way, but while the prices jump higher and higher, the bids coming in faster and faster in the pursuit of the luxurious, Nadya can’t fathom who would want it — or _why_ for that matter.

It sells for twelve and a half million dollars to a stone troll wearing, of all things, a _cape._ She looks like she’s made of pure rubies, herself.

From where he’s perched leaning against their booth, Nadya notices Taylor looking a little paler than before. “You okay?” she whispers.

He nods and tugs at his collar. “Yeah, just thinking of how quickly I could pay off my student loans with that kind of money.”

“Preach.”

Lot the second is a brightly-polished sword. When the goblin offering closer looks comes around their way Nadya can see her reflection clear as day in the flat of the blade… if her reflection were that of a much younger girl with close-cropped hair and the weight of ages pushed deep into the sunken parts of her face gaunt with starvation.

“That’s mine…” she mumbles, and almost finds herself reaching out for it before the goblin snatches it away in yellow-skinned clutches with a sneer.

“To look! Not to touch!”

Nadya yanks her hand back as if stung. Isadora isn’t interested in the blade and waves him off, but she’s too good not to have noticed her little exchange. Not like she’s hiding anything though — after all the woman’s been inside her head. She knows the parts of the story Nadya carefully left out.

Wow, the bids scrolling by on the parchment Adrian watches ever-vigilant sure look fascinating…

The sword sells for 3 million and an added black flame candle to a fae with green tones in their skin. Lily watches the unlit candle trade owners and hands with wide eyes. “You think if we light it we’ll summon Bette Midler?”

Nadya shrugs — at this point anything is possible. Taylor grins and leans in conspiratorially.

“Black flame isn’t so hard,” he whispers with a mischievous grin, “it’s actually a type of fae fire. Remind me to show you before you guys book it back to New York.” And judging by the way Lily’s looking at him she’ll hold him to it — like a _‘literally will not get on the plane until she sees it’_ kind of deal.

Lots three-through-five she forgets; obviously they weren’t memorable things. That or whatever’s in the little cocktails an attendant keeps bringing around packs a harder punch than she thought.

Lot six is rusty iron nail and that’s when things start to get weird.

 _“Sixty!—Seventy-five!—Three hundred!”_ calls out the auctioneer with barely a breath between them.

And these are in the millions.

Nadya still can’t figure out what’s so awesome about something that looks like it rolled under the shelves at a hardware store when it just becomes a repetitive game with the same two players.

The auctioneer goblin raises his aging, sickly green hand and a hushed silence falls over the entire club. _“It seems we have our first bidding war for the night…”_ And he looks way too gleeful for Nadya’s comfort.

_“If the bidders would join us down on the floor, come come…”_

She looks to Isadora and Adrian, already in intent discussion about which lot the Amulet could be based on how much people have already thrown out. Cadence might as well be asleep and Katherine…

Katherine shakes her head. “You don’t want to see that, Nadya. Trust me on this one.”

Thank god Lily’s just as confused. “What’s so valuable about a friggin’ _nail?”_

“It’s what the nail _does,”_ murmurs Cadence; and surprises them all by doing so, “it’s a cursing nail. Old magics banned in New Orleans and likely not practiced outside of the birth places of their magical foci. Whoever takes home the nail takes with them the ability to curse anyone they wish unrepentant. 

“The curse could be something as simple and clean-cut as death, or something as vengeful and specific as the cursed person losing everyone they hold even the barest affection for.”

Down below and graciously out of sight comes the screech of breaking glass; the crowd roars and laughs in bloodthirsty delight. Nadya’s really glad she didn’t go watch at the railing, now.

“But if it’s banned here, how can they sell the nail?”

“It’s the act of the magic that’s banned; but the curse can be put in place anywhere in the world. Unfortunately it’s like Lily said…” he sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose, “there’s nothing illegal about a simple nail.”

Nadya watches as a silent and haunted look passes between the city locals. Katherine jerks her chin towards the other side of the balconies and Taylor barely offers Nadya a smile of farewell before he’s racing away like the Devil is chasing him.

_“Lot six for a generous six hundred and thirty!”_

She didn’t even catch who won.

Maybe that’s for the best.

 _“Next up we have here a modest luxury to be certain, very pretty very heavy but don’t let that leave you wanting — lot seven, the famed_ Amulet of Nero.”

Nadya grasps Adrian’s hand on instinct.

While the auctioneer starts talking up the history of the Amulet, the same goblin as before comes around with a heavy wooden case, the lid propped open and the Amulet resting inside. Large and gold with a pendant piece probably half the size of Nadya’s fist; she has no trouble recognizing it at first glance.

It’s hers. Well — Gaius’, but also hers in a way. It calls to her in the same way the sword did and then some. The dark red center stone catches the light and reflects it across all their faces but she feels it like a siren song. Like she wants the light all to herself.

What Nadya didn’t expect was the way it holds everyone else captive as well. Well — everyone but Katherine. She gives it a glance and that’s that but the vampires? They’re transfixed.

With a greedy grin glinting on pointed teeth the goblin strides away to show it off to the next booth of potential buyers. The moment the Amulet is out of sight the effect is immediate; a held breath released across the booth that leaves the humans meeting eyes with the same kind of confused understanding.

“Okay… you guys felt that, right?” Lily asks, and Nadya hasn’t seen her this flushed since she was alive, “Please tell me that wasn’t just me because there is _nothing_ I own that would match that thing.”

Isadora clears her throat and visibly shifts where she sits. Clearly never a woman out of her own control, having it happen twice in the such a short amount of time has her ill at ease. “No — there is a powerful energy to the thing. At least we won’t have to worry about confirming its authenticity.”

“Which means the Trinity know it’s the real deal, too.” Nadya says. She doesn’t want to, but ignoring the problem won’t make it go away. Trust her — she’s tried.

Adrian runs a hand over his mouth; his expression hard to read and Nadya doesn’t like not knowing what’s going on his head for this long. Frankly he’s been acting strange ever since they touched down in Louisiana but now isn’t the time for her to start up an argument about that. Once they have the Amulet safe and in hand, though…

“Are you ready?” When he doesn’t look up Nadya nudges his shoulder with hers. “Adrian, if this is gonna be too much —”

“Double the starting bid.” He says instead; and Isadora nods in agreement.

_That answers that, I guess._

The auctioneer starts at fifty thousand. Isadora scribbles their bid down on the bespelled parchment. Not a breath after—

_“Three million.”_

The pen breaks in her grasp. Wordlessly Adrian pulls one from his breast pocket and all but shoves it at her.

Awesome. Really just… super great.

Three million. Then four. Then six — ten — one hundred. Every time the number goes up even the slightest bit— _bam_ —a number almost unreasonably high. But there’s no question as to who’s to blame.

But as she watches the Trinity alone in their booth on the far side of the floor it becomes more and more obvious that their calm is nothing more than a ruse. Sure they rest against the richness of _Persephone_ like they belong but their drinks are untouched, the tension enough to deter attendees and attendants alike. Nadya has a feeling you don’t need to be psychic to feel the energy coming off of them in waves of _approach and die._

One thing’s for certain: the Trinity’s tactic of throwing larger numbers out of left field works quickly to deter anyone who might have a passive interest in winning. While all the other lots had taken up decent chunks of the passing hours, the Amulet of Nero is already halfway to one billion dollars in under ten minutes.

Isadora bumps up their bid by a meager million. Immediately Nadya looks across the way again.

Isseya and Valdas whisper together, heads lowered and in an intense debate. If she didn’t know any better she might even call it an argument — one that obviously can’t be that bad since it ends in a firm kiss pressed to the vampiress’ forehead.

She eases herself out of the booth shortly after. Turns back and lets one last longing look pass between them before disappearing around a roped-off doorway — and deeper into _Persephone’s_ depths.

Really, Nadya _tries_ not to let herself dwell on the whole thing. After all even vampires have to go powder their noses, right? But then Valdas rolls up his scroll and sets it aside. The auctioneer doesn’t call out a counter to Isadora’s most recent bid.

 _“In an unprecedented turn of events a bidding war has… been_ requested,” he says instead, and its obvious his scaling lips curl around the words with no small amount of confusion, _“but does the opposing party accept?”_

Valdas abandons the booth as well. Nadya is so trained on his every step that she doesn’t feel her body being moved until Adrian is gently pushing her aside; face set grim and determined.

“Adrian…”

But he barely spares her a look back. “Everything will be fine Nadya, I promise.” But there are no promises, not here. Not when there are two thousand years separating him and Valdas and not one of those in Adrian’s favor.

_“The bidders will be joining us on the main floor, if they please.”_

Nadya nudges Katherine’s leg under the table. “Kathy — quick — what’s back there?”

The Nighthunter follows her eyes to the doorway Isseya had vanished through. “Just the rest of the club,” she answers (unhelpfully), “party rooms, play rooms, bedrooms; that sort of stuff. But it looks closed off for the auction.”

“And what happens to a lot once the bidding is finished?”

“The house keeps it until the end of the night. Gives people time if they bid more than they have on them.” She looks Nadya over with a frown. _“Why?”_

The two vampires reach the opposing staircases at the same time.

“I suppose there’s nothing that could sway you?” asks Valdas.

Adrian scoffs. “And if I gave you the same offer?” 

“I would say yes.”

There’s an unrepentant honesty that almost— _almost_ —makes Adrian falter. It’s brief, and maybe you wouldn’t even notice it if you didn’t know him very well. But Nadya does.

_He can do this._

The least she can do is be just as brave. “I think Isseya’s gone to steal the Amulet while everyone’s focused on the fight.”

“Then what are you waiting for?” Isadora demands and all but kicks them up on their feet. “Go, I will keep an eye on Raines, make sure he doesn’t get himself killed. Try and do the same.”

* * *

Finding Isseya ends up being easier than they expected. All they have to do is follow the trail of blood and goblin bodies and it’s like breadcrumbs right to her. Through the winding maze of _Persephone,_ down some back stairs and through a literal giant metal vault door just chilling at the end of a corridor like it has any reason being there at all.

The vampiress stands the picture of serene in the center of a bloodbath. The club had spared no expense on guards and she had cut through them all without so much as a snag in her dress.

It’s telling that Nadya isn’t the least bit surprised by any of this. She’s come to expect brazen violence from the likes of them.

Katherine’s the one with the stake but its Cadence who puts himself in front of them. “Give us the Amulet and no one has to get hurt.”

She looks up with a raised eyebrow and a deadpan frown.

“Okay — no one _else.”_

The Amulet’s golden chain is wrapped around her clenched fist. She could easily carve a path through them all; leave no human, vampire, or Nighthunter left standing. But instead she lets the Amulet hang at her side and stares at them all in disdain.

“I don’t know how he can stand the sight of you.” 

There’s no question to whom she is referring, and judging by the way Cadence raises his chin defiantly he knows it just the same.

“Feeble, weak, a bleeding heart…” her words catch in her throat, “but it’s _our hearts_ that are bleeding. And you stand there regardless; an abomination. You don’t care. Nobody does.”

Nadya feels both Katherine and Lily reach for her, try to stop her, but she bats them away. Approaches to stand beside Cadence and the weight and burning rage of the eyes that snap to her is a pain she’s become familiar with by now.

“Please…” Though it would help if Nadya knew what she was even asking _for._

Isseya barks a humorless laugh. “Pathetic — the first chance you’re given and what do you do with it? You grovel. I should expect nothing less of a human but maybe… maybe some part of me hoped you would understand. You’re the only one who could.”

Which, okay, now she’s a little insulted. “I’ve _been_ trying to understand, Isseya. I’ve been trying to understand from the beginning. But you guys sure don’t make it easy, do you?”

Baiting the unstable vampire probably isn’t her smartest move. Not that it stops her.

“I just don’t get it.”

“Color me surprised…”

Surprising even to herself, Nadya shakes off her hesitation and fixes Isseya with a stern glare. “Why are you doing this, why are you helping Gaius? You obviously hate him, you don’t need to be a vampire to see that. That whole night he treated you like dirt; you and Valdas both. Why—Why even set him free?”

“Because he is the Godmaker. And we’ve exhausted all other options.”

“Options for _what,”_ asks Lily, bewildered, “world domination?”

“For getting back what we lost.” Isseya fixates on the Amulet, entranced by the way the gemstone catches the light as it comes to a lazy halt.

But Nadya isn’t having it. “Nope, not good enough. I tried to help you — I met with him that night because I wanted to help you. If you think the evil vampire jerkface is your _‘only option’_ then that’s just because you keep betraying anyone who might actually want to help.”

“You speak to me of _betrayal?”_

She flings a hand outward and Nadya feels Katherine tense behind her, ready to spring into action. But no attack comes; just the Amulet of Nero dangling awkwardly from her grasp and an accusatory finger pointed at the vampire beside her. “You stand beside _him_ and _dare_ to speak to me of betrayal?”

Before Nadya can even process what to say to that, a strange look catches in Isseya’s eye. She rolls her wrist and undoes the hold she has on the Amulet’s chain to let it hang on one finger. The world’s most dangerous offering.

“Screw the Godmaker, screw our debt. I’ll give you the Amulet right here and now — with but a single demand.”

Nobody steps forward because nobody trusts that.

Still… Nadya can’t _not_ know. “And that is?”

“Fix him.”

The Trinity vampire nearly chokes on her words; so thick they’re practically in a different tongue and they may very well have been at first. But the disgust written in every inch of her skin radiates of hurt; of loss. Nadya doesn’t want to but she can feel the sting of Isseya’s tears in her own eyes.

“Fix him,” she repeats, “because you _are her._ You’ve found his memories before and you can do so again.” The Amulet sways with her trembling hand. “Do that, little _Bloodkeeper,_ and we have no more reason to help him, no matter his wrath. He cannot take more from us than we have already lost.”

Shame burns in Nadya’s cheeks when she feels the weight of Cadence’s focus on her. Fear and confusion and anger coming from all sides and she wants nothing more than to fall on the ground and try to bear the brunt of it all without breaking on the inside.

But how exactly does she tell the grieving woman she has no idea what to do, or how to do it? Probably with the same personal responsibility and defeat with which she’s going to have to tell everyone she had a chance… and couldn’t take it.

“There’s nothing to _fix,_ crazy bitch.”

Katherine doesn’t give Nadya the chance to find the right words. She launches the stake over Nadya’s shoulder but it goes wide, too wide, and collides with the wall a few inches too far from Isseya’s head.

Isseya who glances down as the wood clatters to the floor and rolls near her heels; utterly and painfully useless. “What a pathetic weapon.”

“But a decent distraction.”

One second Cadence is there and the next he isn’t; he’s across the room and drops down to swipe Isseya’s legs out from under her. She falls and it would be comical if Nadya wasn’t familiar with what she could do when angered, which means Katherine gets little resistance when she flings an arm out as a gesture for Nadya and Lily to keep back.

And as expected Isseya recovers too quick; grabs Cadence’s exposed ankle and pulls him hard enough to lose his stance and land prone beneath her.

“Don’t make me do this, Cyn’!” she snarls and struggles to hold him down. With a grunt the man wrenches an arm free and grasps her lower jaw in a bone-breaking hold.

“How… _dare you!”_

Something snaps and Isseya cries out in pain, giving Cadence a chance he doesn’t waste to hurl her away and into the back wall with brute force. Her collision isn’t pretty; large cracks forming in the wall and brick dust kicking up around the fighting immortals.

There’s a clatter… and Nadya catches sight of a red shine out of the corner of her eye. _The Amulet._

Before she can rush to grab it though, a strong hand pulls her back by the shoulder. Katherine’s expression is grim-set and trained on Cadence with an uncomfortable stillness. She doesn’t let up on Nadya.

“Kathy, what are you doing? We can get it — it’s right there!”

“Too close,” comes her reply; barely a whisper, “wait it out.”

What _it_ is isn’t clear until she, too, focuses on the fighting vampires. Tension rippling off both of them, Isseya’s dress torn and covered in debris. Yet Nadya’s never seen such a wild look in anything even remotely human. Not even when Vega was hunting her down like a lion to a gazelle.

 _No, not quite right._ She’s seen it before — just not through her eyes; not _as_ herself.

A wide grin blooms slowly around the woman’s fangs, blood between the spaces of her teeth and dribbling wetly from her mouth. Different than all the other times she’s seen that particular look of maniacal delight… Nadya is quickly forced to come to terms with the fact that she’s seeing, for the first time in decades, pure joy lit in Isseya’s face.

Though she has every chance to tear Cadence away from where he pins her just slightly off of the ground, instead a tender hand caresses his cheek.

_“There you are… beloved. I’ve missed you so much.”_

He waits. Or… she’s waiting. The tension is enough to make Nadya want to choke but _no one is doing anything._

“We thought we’d lost you,” the tips of her fingers leave powdery stains over his bottom lip, “but you _can_ come home…”

“Cade.”

It’s like Katherine’s voice breaks him from a spell. He jerks away from the other vampire’s touch violently, forces himself back and watches in a twisted form of grief as she slumps to her knees.

“I —” she’s crazed, she’s distraught, she’s still the enemy but the way he looks at his hands and doesn’t understand why they are red from brick dust — he would never have hurt her in his right mind, “— I didn’t… I’m sorry.”

The Amulet’s chain _crunches_ under his shoe; Cadence bends swiftly to pick it up and secure the pendant. With every step he takes back, away from her; a little more light leaves Isseya’s eyes.

Slowly Katherine pries the Amulet from him and hands it off to Nadya. Like their win doesn’t even matter — all her focus is on her friend. “It was the cage all over again, Kathy.” He whispers.

“I know,” but she doesn’t sound any less certain than he does, “but… we’ve got it. We gotta go.”

_We gotta go._

_Adrian._

It’s against her better judgment that Nadya glances back one last time before they close the vault door; the only thing they can attempt to keep Isseya from following them back to the auction.

She sees the woman stand and try to brush the stains from her dress. She sees her toe off her broken heel. She sees her glance up and meet Nadya eye for eye.

Lily helps Cadence shoulder the door closed. The echo of metal sliding into place chills her to the bone.

>hr/>

Twice now Nadya has inadvertently been the reason Adrian ended up injured so severely he couldn’t immediately heal. Which is, in her opinion, two times too many.

“What do you mean _he forfeited?”_ Lily demands, and manages to look at least a little sheepish at the glare her tone gets. “Not that it totally, you know, makes every bit of ass kicked less worth it.”

Adrian glances at her through a purpling eye. “Thanks… I think.”

But even what hoarse whisper he manages seems to be too much, so Isadora answers in his stead. “He gave a rousing good show, Raines too,” she meets his glare with a bemused smirk of her own, “though the violence certainly went on much longer than necessary. But when the crowd came to understand the staggering difference in strengths they quickly lost interest.”

She rests a hand on Adrian’s shoulder. “It seems to me he battered you within an inch of your life so you couldn’t get up.”

Off to the side, Ryder cracks his neck. “Yeah, you’re a lot heavier than you look.”

Nadya fiddles with the Amulet of Nero deep in her jacket pocket. “Then Valdas just… forfeited?”

“Well it was either that or finish the job.”

And she’s glad _that_ wasn’t the case. She pries one hand away from the pendant and reaches out to where Adrian lay, prone and aching, across the short back seat of Isadora’s limousine. “It wasn’t for nothing, but I’m still so sorry.”

“Don’t be,” he rasps, and manages to lift his hand enough for her to grab it, “like you said… it wasn’t for nothing.”

“Just be glad Vera was able to get the house to call an intermission before they put two and two together.”

Taylor leans back in his seat and rests his head on Ryder’s shoulder. If only that alleviated some of the worry in his eyes. “If that Isseya chick killed as many goblins as you say the Council is gonna be called in to deal with it.”

Lily frowns. “But we locked her in the vault. Practically pulled a _Batman_ and handed her to them on a silver platter.”

“Yeah, I don’t think so.”

The occupants all look her way, and with no small amount of worry Nadya recounts the sight of Isseya able to stand on her own two feet right before the door closed. “I wouldn’t be surprised if she was gone by the time they even found out what she’d done, or what lot was missing.”

Adrian shifts and winces in pain. “That kind of strength… would definitely be enough to knock down a brick wall.”

 _And yet Cadence held her back like she was a rag doll._ A thought Lily and Nadya both share in uncertain glances.

Ideally she wants to follow Katherine and Cadence into the night, off to where they secreted away while everyone (read: Nadya but loudly) was fussing over Adrian’s wounds. But he needed to heal so they could leave for New York as soon as possible, and that meant returning to Flechette with Isadora.

The woman glances out of the tinted window by her head to watch the French Quarter pass them by. “Relish your victory, however temporary,” she says with a sigh, “and ensure that it is made permanent when you return home.”

Nadya’s grip tightens on the Amulet so hard the metal bites at her skin.

“We will.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’ve started making “fake screencaps” in the style of the _Choices_ books. Check out a recreation of this chapter’s opening scene [**[HERE]**](https://clansayeed.tumblr.com/post/625641196542459904/oblivion-bound-fake-caps-6-bound-by)


	12. The Return

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The gang returns to New York with a well-earned victory under their belts. But that means Nadya has to face Kamilah, and she isn't quite sure she knows how to feel just yet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **chapter content warnings:** language, mentions of dissociation

Nadya leans on the rail with a wistful sigh. Takes a moment and just… lets herself enjoy the peace of being at peace. No memories haunting her behind her eyelids, no immediate danger… at least none she can see right in front of her.  


No, the only thing in front of her is New Orleans. The French Quarter spread out for blocks around her in vibrant colors going pale against the purpling sky. It’ll be dawn soon.

Did she sigh already? Well… no harm in another one.

Taylor’s learned his lesson in sneaking up on her. Why else would he _knock_ on the door leading up to the roof instead of taking advantage of one final attempt to startle her silly?

He clicks his tongue with a wry look. “Careful now, that sigh right there, that’s trouble. Means you’re falling in love with this place and you won’t ever wanna leave.”

Nadya can’t help it that she laughs.

“Are you trying to sound like Garrus?” It sounds like something the fae would say, actually. 

“No, and frankly you don’t want to hear my Garrus impersonation,” he hesitates; waits for Nadya’s little go-ahead of a nod before joining her overlooking the city as it begins to put itself to sleep, “it’s not very good. My _Ivy_ on the other hand…”

Their laughter is soft and polite. They wouldn’t dare jostle the world below.

“I mean, when I went off to college I had dreams of road trips on spring break, summers spent with one program or another. New Orleans was always on my list.”

“And did she live up to the hype?”

Now how exactly is Nadya supposed to answer that honestly? “Well college-aged me probably wouldn’t have been hanging around the _Graveyard Shift,_ that’s all I’ll say.”

“Nadya, babe, you have _got_ to stop being a hard mood,” Taylor places a hand to his chest, “my little empath heart just can’t take much more of it.”

She shoves him (gently) and their laugh is a little less awkward the second time around. Probably because he is, indeed, an empath. And he gets exactly what she’s feeling right now.

Longing — exhaustion — trepidation — to name a few.

He nudges her shoulder with his own. “You’ll have to come back when everything’s fixed on your end; see the city for real, you know? Not just all the bad things.”

Not like she goes _searching_ for the bad things, thanks. They just kind of… happen dangerously close in her proximity. “I’d like that. Lil’ too, for sure.”

“Oh, for sure. Though I have a feeling her and Ivy together might be a bit more trouble than Nik’ll want to deal with.”

And on that Nadya can most certainly agree. Not that she does so with words. Strangely she doesn’t feel much like talking right now. Not-so-strangely, Taylor doesn’t either. So they lean in mutual silence and watch the streets below. People going through the motions; living their lives.

_Lives far less strange than theirs._

The blue of the dawn is just starting to bleed orange when he finally speaks again.

“You’re not used to winning the day, are you?” She isn’t surprised in the least to look and see that strange iridescence back in his irises.

“I don’t have enough coffee in me to answer a question like that,” which — that’s her answer; but Taylor definitely isn’t taking it, “I mean… back when all this _stuff_ started; we won then, I think. Adrian was exonerated and Jax joined the Council and Vega wasn’t trying to kill me anymore —”

Taylor holds up a finger. “Wait — like the missing Senator, that Vega?”

“You knew him?”

“Uh, Vee and our friend Kristin lived up there together. Wait a second—he was a _vam—_ no… that’s not the point. Sorry, please continue.”

 _God, is that how I look to other people,_ Nadya wonders; but it’s humbling to see somehow.

“Anyway… I thought everything turned out for the better, and for a while it was better. But now that I think about it…” _Gaius, Jameson, the Trinity;_ all of them lurking just on the other side of the two-way glass. Waiting for the time to strike and take her happiness away; to pluck memories from her she never asked for all in pursuit of some epic fantasy-level world conquering.

_If the fight wasn’t over, did that still count as a victory?_

“And you’re left wondering if this is the same deal. If you’ve really won, or if there’s more stuff—worse stuff—just out of sight.” Taylor finishes for her. Still a little weird and possibly more akin to mind-reading than the half-fae originally led her to believe, but for the moment she’s glad to not have to say it.

“Yeah, exactly.”

His hand comes to rest over Nadya’s on the railing. He’s warmer than he should be and the sun’s got nothing to do with it. Likely his weirdness is helped by touch, too. Which Taylor all but confirms aloud when a sudden but not unwelcome ease relaxes the tension she didn’t know she’d gathered in her shoulders.

“I can’t offer any answers, and I don’t think I’d want to. With my luck I’d be wrong and you’d hate me forever.” He’s joking but Nadya still rolls her eyes and shakes her head for it.

“But I can say that no matter what happens? You’ll always have friends here to call up if needed.”

 _What is she supposed to say to something so sincere?_ “Same to you, Taylor, same to you.”

A sleek black car with tinted windows pulls around the corner and onto their lonely street to park right in front of the bar.

Looks like their ride is here.

* * *

Kamilah isn’t waiting for them when the plane pulls into the nice and shady hangar. Nadya tells herself she isn’t surprised by this… but she’s trying not to tell _herself_ mostly-truths lately either. Luckily she’s still too exhausted (and she’s pretty sure she only got about half an hour’s nap in the _entire_ time they were in New Orleans) to make much of a fuss about it.

In fact, Nadya barely remembers sending a text off before she and Lily both are being ushered into the back seat of one of Adrian’s company cars.

[TEXT]: back in NY and miss you like crazy. can we plz talk??  
[TEXT]: its nadia

And its the most dreamless, dead-to-the-world-est sleep she knew she needed but didn’t know how to get. Staying awake for near-days and going through every emotion under the sun and also dealing with a high-stakes pursuit weren’t exactly on her list of viable solutions to her sleeping troubles.

 _Ergo_ the point of all this — no one is allowed to think her anything less than totally justified when Nadya wakes up in her own bed, in her own bedroom, sometime well after sunset and thinks for even the smallest second that everything was just a dream. She knows logically that it wasn’t… but still.

_Totally justified._

When her eyes adjust to the lack of light Nadya realizes she’s not alone. There’s a figure sitting on the edge of her bed nearest the window, away from the door. Giving her the chance to escape if she needs it; making sure she doesn’t feel trapped.

_Only one person would do that._

She fumbles for her glasses on the nightstand but leaves her bedside lamp untouched. Can’t shake the feeling like if she _does_ turn the lights on then Kamilah will vanish. This is better for them both.

“Hi.”

Something moves near her head; Nadya leans back to see the woman pulling her fingertips away from where they had been combing through her hair gently. She wants it back so much she aches from the loss of them.

“Hello,” replies Kamilah; sounding awfully breathless for a woman who doesn’t need to breathe, “did you rest well? You… seemed to need it.”

Probably not what she meant to ask judging by the way the neon signs from across the street illuminate her in postmodern beauty. It’s okay though — Nadya isn’t sure she has the courage yet to say what really needs saying.

“When did you get here…?”

“Shortly after your return. Oh, Lily wished for you to know she’s left for the evening. She didn’t leave a message as to why.”

So it’s just been Nadya and Kamilah in the apartment for at least the daylight hours. Alone; together. And not talking about their problems.

When Nadya sits up (in part to look at Kamilah better, in part to make sure she doesn’t fall back asleep on accident) the bed dips as Kamilah shifts back; makes to stand and leave her with all this twin-sized budget bed kit to herself. And because she can’t stand a thought so terrible Nadya reaches out and stops her with a hand on her arm.

“Kamilah.”

A long pause — then; “Yes, Nadya?”

“Why are you here?”

 _“You_ messaged _me,”_ so Nadya of course fumbles for her phone and finds it charging under her pillow, “though I suppose I should have realized you were exhausted beyond recognition.”

“Why’s that?”

“You spelled your own name wrong.”

Upon further inspection _yes, yes she did._ “Glad you weren’t expecting some _other_ disaster you’re dating also named Nadia…” That she chooses not to dwell on the fact that she may have very well used _that word_ for the first time _in the middle of their first fight_ is actually self-care.

Or — she doesn’t until Kamilah’s been quiet for an awfully long time.

“Uhm — I take that back, actually — what I meant was…”

“I won’t disagree.”

Only Kamilah Sayeed could look so perfect framed in the flickering lights of a discount electronics shop.

“But you’re _my_ disaster.”

Nadya kisses her because every other time it’s been Kamilah who takes the lead, takes charge, takes _her._ This isn’t some attempt to switch that dynamic either (in fact Nadya’s very happy with it just the way it is) but what else is she supposed to do seeing all these vulnerable parts of such an invulnerable woman one right after the other?

 _But — no, she can’t fall into this._ Fall into _her_. Not without talking. But holy mother of crap she doesn’t wanna do anything but moan at the lips soft on her cheeks, her chin, her throat…

“Kamilah.”

Nadya only has to say her name once. They both know how this works. That doesn’t mean she doesn’t feel the hesitance; the resistance before they part and she all but forces them to meet eye-to-eye. Nor does it mean that she doesn’t take just the tiniest bit of happiness from it.

When Nadya starts pulling away Kamilah holds on just a little bit tighter. Only for a moment; then its gone.

“We can’t not —” _— talk about this._

“I know; I agree.”

And she’s got a whole speech planned out in bullet points; not even fully seated and she’s already buzzing to jump right into it. Until—

“I was uncertain and without control. I fell back on old habits to bring my life to a heel — but those were the wrong choices to make. They nearly cost me… something very important.”

Kamilah’s hand falls open on top of the bedspread and Nadya takes it for the offering it is. Their fingers slot together familiar and like nothing’s changed but this is different. This is talking about it; this is… this is Kamilah _apologizing._ “They nearly cost me _you,_ Nadya.”

Now is _not_ the time to go all red in the face and flustered. Nadya’s willpower is astounding frankly. “There was never a second where I doubted that you cared. Not about what I was going through, or what it was doing to… to everything in my life. But I think there was a part of me that didn’t want to tell you because I didn’t _want_ to believe that _you_ and… and the _you_ I saw were —” _— were the same person._

Kamilah’s thumb strokes along her knuckles slow and rhythmic. “My thoughts are the same. I am not fragments of a woman; a queen, different than a soldier, different than a killer, different than who I am today. I am all of those things and more. And perhaps still there are parts of myself I have not yet come to know.”

Nadya chances a look up while she listens, but it’s the words Kamilah doesn’t say that catch her by surprise. The ones about who that person she doesn’t know could be. And— _god she hopes she’s not reading too much into this_ —who she could be that person with.

“I think I get it now.”

“And what would that be?”

She squeezes their hands until it hurts because she knows it’s probably the weight of a feather to someone like Kamilah.

“We were scared of the same thing and for the same reasons; you… and your past. But I wanted to know more. I—I wanted to talk about it, without thinking of how hard bringing up all of those bad memories might be for you.”

Kamilah purses her lips and offers a slow nod. “Insightful; and perhaps I was so insistent on trying to keep that knowledge from you that I did not stop to consider what… I was saying in withholding it.”

Now the question is… where do they go from here?

“So we work on that — we try and… understand what the other is doing when she…”

“Makes a mistake she instantly regrets?”

Nadya smiles, but it’s strained. “That’s half of the things I do anyway though.”

“You know my meaning in the context of this, Nadya.”

“Yeah, but that’s not my only problem.” Which isn’t the _best_ word she could use but at the moment she’s not focusing so much on _word choice_ as actual feelings. And Nadya… feels a problem. There’s a breath of a second where it feels like Kamilah might start to pull away, but it passes.

She thinks better of it. She tries to understand.

“You are amazing, Kamilah. You are this… super gorgeous, super smart, super old—in a good way I swear—and super experienced vampire. But it’s not a smart thing for us to—to _ignore_ that.”

“I wasn’t under the impression we had been.”

This is more painful to admit than Nadya thought it was gonna be. There’s no turning back now though; no ‘Restart from Checkpoint’ or save to load. 

And this is so so important. Nadya wants to follow through, and not just for the sake of _them._ She deserves it for herself. “Maybe _you_ haven’t — but I have. I thought that was the only way we were gonna make this work. Only, if I ignore that then I’m ignoring the fact that you are always going to have a power over me. A physical one. You lashed out and…”

“And I could have hurt you.” That Kamilah’s hand tightens with hers is the literal definition of ironic but she knows it comes from a good place; the same place all that honesty was walled up inside now pouring out.

“Nadya, please tell me you know I would never have hurt you. I don’t think I could.”

“That’s not the point. The point is you were angry, and your first reaction was to try and scare me into running away.”

See, this is Nadya’s problem. There’s a reason her life is so organized — without all her colored pens and sticky notes and multiple tabs that always end up in the strangest places, she’s a literal human mess. Prone to rambling and impulsive actions that aren’t always good for her health; physical and emotional both.

She didn’t organize _this_ part of her talk with Kamilah. She didn’t even know _this_ part existed. And now it’s out there in the world without a label tacked on and… and…

“And I don’t think that’s something I’m quite… _over,_ yet.”

Nadya trusts Kamilah still; she doesn’t flinch away when the woman’s free hand comes up to her cheek — thumbs away a tear she didn’t know was falling. She can separate the _then_ from the _now._

But at the end of the day her trust and the way she had felt betrayed that night… they weren’t mutually exclusive.

She turns her face into the lingering palm. When she exhales her breath rattles in her lungs.

“I miss you.”

Kamilah’s hand betrays her composed silence; the barest tremor. “I’m here, Nadya.”

Nadya who doesn’t _want_ to pull back, never wanted to pull back… but what is she saying to herself if she doesn’t?

“I miss you,” she repeats, “and I still care about you — I don’t really see that changing any time soon. And I’ll forgive you, really—I will. I just need some time.”

_I know there are no promises you’ll be there when I’m ready, or if you won’t have moved on, or if you can’t forgive me for not forgiving you, or for not understanding you, or for making you feel this way. But I feel this way too._

And in all the things she wants to say but doesn’t, Nadya’s left still and heartbroken. Completely by her own design.

The bed dips and Nadya lets her eyes flutter closed as Kamilah’s lips press to her forehead. Not so much a kiss as a touch; something sincere and solid and so so sad.

Kamilah commits the warmth and life of her to memory. Nadya dares to hope that some day they’ll have all of this again.

She has to. If anything deserves _hope_ right now it’s them.

Finally — too soon, too _damned_ soon — a whisper tickles at her hairline.

_“I’ll be here.”_

When she opens her eyes Nadya is alone.

* * *

Jax has a really good point; if the heat from Adrian’s industrial-grade blowtorch hadn’t been enough to melt the gold, then they probably didn’t need to worry about his sword scratching the stupid thing up in any way that didn’t lend to opening it.

Everyone still backs up a few paces for good measure. They’ve all seen him in action — and the man needs a wide berth.

Nadya closes her eyes and braces herself but she still isn’t prepared for the hollow screeching _clang_ every time the sharpened steel collides with the surface of the Amulet. _One—two—three._

He stops after three. Judging by the enraged determination in his eye though he’d keep going given the opportunity.

Lily throws her hands up before crossing out ‘ASSAULT BY KATANA’ on the transparent eraser board. “I’m calling it. This thing is a horcrux.”

“A what?” asks Adrian, but Nadya just gives him the now familiar _“I’ll explain it later”_ wave-off. Because unless pop culture references were the secret puzzle to opening the Amulet of Nero they weren’t that important in the moment.

She pushes her glasses up and unsuccessfully stifles a yawn with the back of her hand. Brings her focus back to their list of attempts to crack open (literally) the case… all of which have failed miserably.

‘METALWORKING HAMMER’  
‘REGULAR HAMMER’  
‘BLOWTORCH’  
‘ASKING IT NICELY’ (Nadya’s idea)  
‘OPEN SESAME’ (Maricruz’s idea)  
‘ASSAULT BY KATANA’

Off to the left Lily’s circled ‘MISSING KEY??’ over and over in the corner and while they had all agreed to try and hold out on just not having found the right amount of physical force they might as well face it.

They’re running out of options.

Adrian clears his throat and stares hard enough at Nadya that the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. _“Ahem,_ Nadya, could you…?”

“Oh — yes — sorry guys, my bad.”

When she pulls the cover back over the Amulet the difference is immediate. The tension leaves her friends’ shoulders; they sit a little less restless and their eyes are a little less bordering-vampish.

Nadya wasn’t the only one who had been content to write off the strange aura that had come over the vampires in Isadora de la Rosa’s booth as nothing more than trepidation for the inevitable. Now, however, they have to face the facts.

There’s something in the Amulet that draws vampires to it. Cadence had said so himself — when he talked about generations of vampire influence. It’s not enough to incite a war (about which Nadya was admittedly worried, and with good reason given their track record) but covering it was a noticeable benefit to rational thinking.

They only have one thing going for them right now; if they can’t open it then no one else can, either. Hopefully that includes the Trinity. Maybe it even includes Gaius. Who knows? They certainly don’t.

There are too many unknowns — and they’re starting to take a toll on everyone in one form or another.

Adrian begins to gather up the dozens of data graphs spread out in front of him. “With that, I think we’ve come to a natural stopping point for the evening.” And nobody disagrees.

While Nadya carefully wraps the Amulet back up to return it to the R&D vault, Lily leans on her elbows and watches.

“I take it we still haven’t heard from Cadence? What about calling up Izzy?”

If only she had good news to give. “Nope; and I already did. She definitely remembers feeling that weird magnetism to it before it was repossessed by _Persephone_ but nothing beyond that that she knew of. Actually,” she throws a look over to Adrian, “she suggested one thing; _witch-fire?_ Something like that.”

He seems hesitant to mull the idea over. But they were desperate enough to let Jax hit it repeatedly, so…

“I’ll look into a few contacts. That kind of magic should only be used sparingly and in dire cases.”

“Would this count?”

A beat. “Probably. We would have to run it by the Council, though.” Which kind of nulls even the idea. Since everyone had agreed _not_ to tell the rest of the Council yet. Not only because of the Amulet’s potential.

Lester, Priya, the Baron — Nadya likes to try and see the best in people as much as possible but they don’t make it easy on her. None of them are certain who would, if it came down to it, side against Gaius for a second time.

_Nothing is unlikely anymore._

Wow, their shortest-lived idea yet.

Nadya nods towards the vault for Lily to follow. “As for the _other thing_ — Kathy’s starting to get worried. I guess he left town a day after we did.” Which the Nighthunter had admitted wasn’t off-brand for Cadence. But the museum had let slip (which Nadya knows means _‘been bullied into admitting’)_ that he had been granted a leave of absence; _very_ off-brand.

 _“The one thing he’s always had is that damn museum. No identity, no Izzy, and we both know I’m a recent development. He was a manic mess the first time that kind of dissociation happened.”_ The Nighthunter had kept her cool better than Nadya would have in her situation. But that didn’t mean she wasn’t worried ill. 

_“What if it’s worse this time,”_ even through the phone she couldn’t hide her concern; her fear, _“what if he hurts himself? What if he hurts_ someone else?”

Hopefully they find him soon. But she’s met that strange group of people; the regulars at the _Graveyard Shift._ If anyone has the ability (and sheer force of stubborn will, to be honest) to find Cadence it’s them.

“I mean, if I went _Jekyll and Hyde_ around a chick as crazy as that Trinity woman, I’d probably want to get away for my own health too.”

Lily’s comment doesn’t sit well with her; luckily at her admonishing look she at least _looks_ apologetic. “You know what I mean.”

“I also know a little bit of what he’s going through.”

There’s an _“ahem”_ behind them as Nadya spins the wheel on the vault. Adrian definitely has the look of someone who knows he shouldn’t have been eavesdropping but was anyway.

“Speaking of.”

Only… she’d rather not _speak_ of it until it becomes a problem. “It’s fine,” she replies, and waves it off. That was what they’d agreed on for the time being, right? And there haven’t been any problems.

Turns out feeling the weight of relationship-burdened depression the moment you walk through your front door lends to a pretty heavy sleeping pattern. Like Nadya’s body doesn’t want her to do anything but try to get through the next day, and the next, and maybe… just maybe the one after that.

Adrian doesn’t seem immediately convinced. “Promise?”

“Pinky promise.” Which — he still doesn’t really get the concept but the verbal agreement is enough.

Once the lab is fully shut down they manage to pile together into the elevator. Jax thumbs at his phone, blows the hair out of his eyes just a _little_ too close to Nadya’s ear for her liking. She swats him away because _personal bubble._

“What’s the matter?”

“Eh, Espinoza wants —” But he catches himself with a look in Lily’s direction. “— something. She wants something. And I gotta… go get it.”

Nadya and Adrian just shake their heads and laugh at him while Lily pretends with absolutely no tact whatsoever not to know what he’s talking about. She even sticks her fingers in her ears like that’ll somehow stop her super vampire hearing.

Jax, somehow with even _less_ tact, like _negative tact,_ takes it as permission to lean and murmur on Nadya’s free side. “Apparently Lula got into the cake. So…”

 _“Weren’t there three?”_ Adrian hisses, surprised.

“You’ll get it when you meet her.”

Nadya reaches around and pats Jax’s chest awkwardly. “Good luck with that. Maybe try putting them in the passenger seat this time.”

“Shut up.”

“Just saying… third time’s the charm you know.”

When she gives Lily a nod in ‘all clear’ everyone knows she heard everything. But she’s just excited to know Maricruz is going as all-out as she possibly can, so who would be so heartless as to spoil the whole thing by just admitting the obvious?

Adrian lets them all off on the ground level and offers Nadya one last chance to go home early. “What do you pay her for if you keep giving her chances to _not work?”_ And Jax raises a good point — too good of a point. She maybe shoves him in front of her with all her might, and he maybe stumbles. The world may never know. “Just saying — let me know next time there’s an opening.”

“I’ll be up in a sec. I just have to _stake him_ first.”

She and Lily wave until the doors close. Yes, they live together and see each other every day. Yes, they recently defied death in New Orleans together. But its rare now that Nadya and Lily get a chance to unwind like they used to. So whenever it comes along they’re both there to indulge greedy and giggling.

“Mari’s really going all out with this party, huh?”

It’s a valiant effort but Lily doesn’t look so much humbly embarrassed as expectantly excited. “I think I’m in love, Nadi’,” she jumps the next few steps like hopscotch, “she was fully ready to get a _bouncy castle.”_

“How are they going to fit a bouncy castle in the Shadow Den?”

“Oh I didn’t say I let her. But she was planning on it, and isn’t that what true love is all about?”

Nadya tries not to falter. Key word being _tries._ And around anyone else she might do everything in her power not to draw attention to it but this is Lily. Who found her huddled up in bed hours after Kamilah’s farewell and called to cancel her own date to stay with her; to be there for her and give her all the hugs she desperately needed but didn’t know how to ask for.

She doesn’t need to pretend around that kind of love and friendship.

But before Nadya can apologize Lily starts up an air drum solo in front of her while they walk. “And winner for _Most Insensitive Best Friend Ever_ is — drum roll…”

“You’re fine, Lil’.”

“I’m gushing about my life while you’re… not so hot.”

Nope, Nadya won’t have it. “You’re gonna gush because you have every _right_ to gush, okay? You’ve been a vampire for a _whole year._ That’s super important. You survived Turning, became the digital fanged crusader, _and_ it’s ten times more cool because you did it all without a brand. Jax and Adrian can’t say that. Heck… even Kamilah can’t.

“So if you want a Turning party, you’re gonna get a Turning party. I’m not the only one who thinks you’re worth celebrating.” They lace their fingers and Nadya squeezes. “Plus if Jax shows up with the third set of cakes to a canceled party I think he might flip his lid.”

Lily gives a dramatic little sniffle — pretends to wipe a nonexistent tear from her eye. “Please tell me you just memorized all that.”

“Why?”

“Because it’ll be the speech to end all speeches.”

Together they play-shove all the way through the Raines Building atrium. Right before the revolving door Lily spins her around, takes both of their hands together and swings them gently.

“Do you want me to uninvite her? She probably doesn’t even care.”

“No — and even if we broke up, like, _badly_ I wouldn’t want that. I’m just not that kind of person.”

“True, you’d probably invite them to Christmas dinner or something.”

She rolls her eyes at that and ignores it for her own sanity. “And for the record — as someone with experience in decoding Kamilah-isms, I think you surprised her. She admires strength, and Lily… you’re the strongest person I know.”

When they hug, like always, their glasses get jostled in the middle and the following laughter lightens both of their hearts. Lily makes her promise to add that last line to her speech (which inadvertently is a promise to write a speech, she’s guessing) and only when she’s out the doors and around the corner of the block does Nadya head back up to the office.

Adrian is leaning in his open doorway when she exits the elevator — Nadya slows her steps for a hesitant second before coming to realize he’s just having another one of his pensive moods. He’s been having them a lot lately. More and more since they returned from New Orleans.

This one looks different though. He’s not staring into space — he’s staring at her.

“What?” She finally yields, glancing at her boss over her shoulder while the computer boots up slow as a snail. “What’s that face for?”

Nadya nearly convinces herself he isn’t going to answer.

“It’s good to see you smiling, that’s all.” He leans out and squeezes her shoulder; something soft and friendly and so sweet her teeth ache from it. Before Adrian can pull away Nadya makes sure to return the gesture.

“It’s good _to smile,”_ which is far more bleak than she would like, “you know something?”

Adrian pauses mid-step. “Hm?”

“It’s even better to mean it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As if things would really be that easy for our girls. It hurts to put them through this but I think it’ll make them come out of it stronger... I hope? Comments and critique would be fabulous as always! Thank you for reading!


	13. The Party

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's been one whole year since Lily was Turned and she refuses to let it be a bummer. Time to party!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **chapter content warnings:** language, alcohol, blood (brief)

Nadya’s glad she never has to explain to anyone what the Shadow Den looked like _before_ Jax joined the Council and made the Clanless, well, not-so-Clanless. It’s just such a different place. Sometimes that dark and dim tiny-flame-in-the-endless-night hopeful sanctuary for anyone seeking it seems like a distant dream rather than a memory.  


Even if she tried, too, Nadya’s not quite so sure they would believe her.

That being said — Maricruz has really outdone herself.

Every bodega and small store in the city must be sold out of string lights. Not that Nadya’s complaining; all the bulbs put together like this form a weird kind of heated-lamp effect and being underground in the middle of January _had_ been one of her biggest concerns about tonight.

The unofficial Fountain Square is a dazzling sight with multicolored fairy lights — and whatever stall _can_ have streamers _does_ have streamers stretching the whole length of the party. It’s kind of jarring when she spots the cutoff point. How everything just drops off into a dark abyss. But right now there’s probably no place safer on the entire island.

Adrian tucks his present higher under his arm and takes in the decorations with equal bewilderment. “I wonder where they’re siphoning the electricity from.”

There’s a little frown creasing between his eyebrows as he says it. Nadya knows that look and quickly diverts his attention. _She doesn’t know either but she has a feeling the answer isn’t exactly on the right side of the law._

“I can’t believe you guys don’t do this for everyone.” _This;_ a celebration for a successful year as a newbie-vampire. “Imagine what kind of party I could throw for _you.”_

Why is he looking at her like that? What does a 200 year old vampire have to be afraid of? Her party-planning skills are excellent, thank you very much. Or had he already forgotten the Fourth of July?

“Well, remember Nadya that for many people — especially around here — their Turning wasn’t something to look back on fondly.”

“Lily’s wasn’t.”

He’ll give her that. “Touché.” But his point still stands. “I can’t speak for some of the younger ones, but I definitely don’t remember the date on which I was Turned.”

“Because colonial America used different calendars?”

“Because we were in the middle of a war.” Which is a fair point, so Nadya concedes.

Only they’ve brought up his Turning — so of course Adrian goes uncomfortably quiet beside her. Thoughts lost a long time ago and with company _way less cool_ than those at present. So instead she hooks her arm in his and points forward to where the alley of casual attendees empties out into the heart of the Square.

Hard to believe nearly a year ago they had sat in this very spot, Adrian on the run and Nadya just trying to keep up with everyone. They had sat together on the rim of the old memorial fountain and she just _knew_ the weight of the injustice was something he demanded to carry. _“So do something about it,”_ she had said — an offhanded thing when they were safe and sound.

But he had.

He had wanted to have a brand-new fountain made especially for the Shadow Den. Jax had refused, which was an argument Nadya’s too happy to recall at the moment, but his reasons were sound. Instead they worked together to renovate the one already down here. It wasn’t just a place to remember the lost and mourned; it was as much a part of the community as Jax, or Lily, or even little Lula.

Now, with cracks filled-in and worn edges sanded back to definition, the memorial stone in the heart of the Shadow Den was no longer something to avoid looking at. Now the pictures and names and memories of gone loved ones could be celebrated. As they were meant to.

Adrian takes it in; his passion project, his apology letter to the Clanless community. _This can never make up for what we’ve done — but it’s a place to start._ He starts blinking rapidly and Nadya squeezes his arm to draw him out of his somber appreciation.

Lily would _kill her_ if she found out someone was crying at her party.

They leave their presents on a small pile by the fountain rim. What did you get someone for surviving death for the first time around — well Lily hadn’t wanted presents so much as the party itself, but if anyone wanted to bring something for the community they were more than welcome to.

As if Nadya could ever attend a party and _not_ bring a gift.

_“Nadi’Nadi’Nadi’Nadi’!”_

_Incoming._ She braces herself for literal impact and somehow still manages to stumble as the whirlwind of child vampire comes at her like a tiny freight train. Pulls little Lula back to hold her at arms’ length and grin down at those tiny fangs and sparkling eyes.

“Hey kiddo,” she takes care not to ruffle the young girl’s hair, done up all special for the party with curls that look suspiciously like Maricruz’s, “wow, look at your dress!”

Lula spins in her frilly little frock, on one foot and with arms spread out, while her stuffed elephant is dangerously close to being hurled into oblivion. “D’you like it, do you do you _doyou?”_

“I feel like I’m looking at a movie star.”

Nadya elbows Adrian for good measure. He startles only a bit this time. “Absolutely,” he agrees, “you look like a little Shirley Temple.”

“Who?” Lula asks with her head cocked, and Nadya quickly slaps her hand over her mouth to stifle her laughter.

“I’m gonna let you handle that one.”

And if he’s going to try and get out of it the way Lula suddenly latches onto him insisting she knows stops that in its tracks. Nadya just winks and skirts off while she still can.

Because there’s only one place to find Lily Spencer at any party — and that’s exactly where Nadya finds her. Digging around in the wires underneath what looks like a pretty expensive DJ rig with wire strippers between her teeth and tangled electrical tape in her determined grasp.

She crouches down and taps Lily on the forehead. “Anything I can do?”

“I’ll call you if I want it to break.”

Not that they don’t grin at one another — Nadya’s fully aware of her technological ineptitude. Still she makes herself comfortable to watch a master work her art.

“You remember this is _your_ party, right?”

“Uh-huh, your point?”

“Shouldn’t someone else be doing that?”

Stupid questions get stupid answers; in this case a look that’s so withering Nadya will see it every time she so much as trips on a shoelace. So she tries something else; “Where’re Mari and Jax?”

Lily spits out the roll of tape and Nadya grabs it before it can disappear in the crowd of feet. “Jax and Arnold are bringing in the kegs. Someone needed a boss so Mari went off. Hand me that, no, that thing right — no to your left.”

“You just said right!”

“Your other right!”

Lily all but yanks the god-knows-what from her hand and Nadya flicks her roommate’s nose for the trouble. “Don’t hang out under here for too long, okay?”

“Nadya — I can’t just sit by and _not_ have a banger playlist going at a party with my name on it.”

“Really, will the party gods cast you out?” She feigns surprise, and quickly scrambles off of the small temporary stage before divine retribution comes upon her.

“You’d better run, Al Jamil!”

Only… Lily can’t see around the booth, so she doesn’t know just how right she is.

After all, why would anything ever go right for her? Why would she think she could enjoy a nice party and not turn to physically collide into the one person she had hoped she could just… yearn at from a safe and wistful distance?

Kamilah catches her faster than it takes her to realize she’s falling. Hands steady on her upper arms, making sure she’s not about to keel over and end up a pool of blood on the concrete underfoot.

_Talk about falling head-over-heels._

“Uh — thanks for that…” says Nadya sheepishly, but Kamilah doesn’t respond. She just stares, eyes practically squinting, before leaning back with a nod.

“What,” Nadya pales, “something on my face?”

The woman shakes her head. “No. I was merely checking to make sure you had your contacts in.”

 _Oh._ “Y-Yeah. Lily likes to — well this dance she invented is just spinning around and with her new speed I really didn’t want them to pistol-whip someone in the face.” Is she rambling?

 _Wow, she’s rambling._ And Kamilah notices it too; likely in the same moment. The smile it gets is small but there. Like a secret between them even in the small crowd.

It makes Nadya feel not-so-bad for having one of her own.

“Thanks for coming,” she switches the subject quickly, “dunno if you know but… it—it means a lot to Lil’.” _And to me._

Kamilah’s words are careful and measured. “Well then, you may tell Lily that I am grateful for the invitation. And wouldn’t turn down the opportunity to see her… enjoying herself.”

_So this is a thing they’re going to be doing, huh._

Before Nadya can answer there’s a shrill whistle that makes the entire crowd—save herself—flinch. _Sensitive vampires and whistles do_ not _go well together._

A gaggle of angry glares all whip over to where Jax is smirking at the entrance to another alley of stalls. He lowers his fingers from his lips and motions at them with a wave. Before Kamilah even gets the chance to consider declining, Nadya nudges her with insistence. “Come on, we’re not gonna be _those_ people.”

“And which people would that be?”

“The ones who get social restraining orders on each other.”

She doesn’t mention it, but Nadya doesn’t miss the little bit of relief that crosses Kamilah’s face under a string of purple lights.

Jax has alcohol (some thankfully _not_ from a keg, though she knows Lily can and will live her fantasy of a keg-stand at some point tonight) which, thank god honestly. It helps that he’s with her too — because someone has to be here to back her up when Nadya will try to convince the world Kamilah takes a bottle of cheap beer from Arnold with a thanks and a long drink.

Adrian joins them shortly after; the huff he gives at Nadya with no real heat behind it. “Nu-uh,” she drinks her cider to avoid laughing too hard, “you dated yourself back there, old man.” Which makes Jax and Kamilah give equally confused looks — so of course the laughter can’t be contained.

Halfway through her bottle there’s blowback on unseen speakers — followed by chill-yet-classy electronica. When Lily’s sliding in with a manic delight that could only mean she’s ready to do something crazy…

Though she wants to wait for her _grand ‘stand_ until Maricruz can admire her for it.

The music acts like a beacon. Summons vampires and humans alike from their scattered conversations and to the Square for dancing. Lily doesn’t give Nadya a choice in joining her — but her two left feet are a compliment to her best friend’s two right ones and they make it work.

Jax, too, gets dragged in with them — who in their right minds could possibly turn down Lula for anything, ever — and its with absolute amusement that Nadya watches the older seamstress Evelyn accost Adrian for something that’s a little too much like a swing for the current beats-per-minute.

And then there was one.

Under the guise of _“needing a change in pace ohmygod,”_ Lily shoves Nadya away and heads back to the stereo stage. Only someone horrendously oblivious would think she wasn’t trying to do the obvious.

It’s Kamilah. Kamilah is horrendously oblivious.

She looks down at Nadya’s offered hand with lips pursed. “This isn’t the sort of music I’m… familiar with dancing to.”

“You think anyone actually does?”

Together they look out to the dance floor. Nadya’s point is proven in every direction, and then some.

“Nadya…”

But it isn’t dancing that has Kamilah hesitating. It makes perfect sense — Nadya was stupid for thinking they even could. “Nope, you’re right, my bad. I’ll —”

The familiarity of her hand is astounding. A drink of cool water on a blistering summer day. Nadya remembers a distant thought — that she had been happy to give up those sunny afternoons without a look back if it meant being with Kamilah.

And now; laughing until she’s pink in the face while showing a two thousand year old vampire how to improvise a groove?

She still would.

An hour and a second bottle later and Nadya’s sure she might die. No really, this is what dying feels like. Tightness in her chest, she can’t breathe, tongue dry and heavy in her mouth and her pulse racing through her body and pounding in her temples.

And just what will she say with her dying breath?

“Groovy moves, Jax!”

Thus Nadya can depart this world peacefully — or at the very least fall back into Adrian in absolute hilarity with the knowledge he won’t let her fall.

Jax glares but doesn’t let it stop him. He keeps on hustling, keeps on murdering Nadya with every jerky thrust of his hips.

_Cause of death: aggressive hustle._

Though if she doesn’t get some air she’ll get dizzy at the very least. Adrian helps her back by the impromptu bar where Kamilah leans against a support column.

“I was under the impression we as a society had agreed to leave disco behind.”

Adrian snorts a laugh. “You did, but I’m pretty sure you were the only one.”

“If you ever visited a disco you must have done so behind my back.”

“No, but I can’t begrudge people going out and having a good time.”

“Ah yes, I forgot who I was talking to,” Kamilah rolls her eyes so hard it makes _Nadya’s_ head hurt, “you’ve _always_ been Mister Fun Entertainment.”

“Hey —”

She would be happy to watch the pair of them go at it all night, really. But when Adrian stops mid-sentence its enough to make both Nadya and Kamilah turn to see where Lily is running towards them… and with an all-too-familiar widened panic in her eyes.

_Just one thing, can’t they have just one thing?_

“What is the matter?” Kamilah sets on her immediately, but Lily ignores her for Nadya.

“You need to come quick.”

“Where’ve you been?” She distantly remembers maybe hearing Lily call out for her girlfriend, who had been mysteriously absent for how excited she was to throw this thing. “Lil’, what’s wrong?”

“Too much talking, not enough walking.”

Lily starts to shove Nadya down the way she’d come. The older vampires follow hot on their heels.

“Lil’ — stop shoving me I’m gonna fall. I’m com—I’m coming, okay? Jeez…” She has to practically force Lily to let her walk on her own two feet. And still with no questions answered.

“They’re just up ahead.”

 _They._ Why does Nadya’s stomach fall out of her butt at that? _Probably because the only ‘they’ in her life lately have been crazy killer lovers, maybe, possibly?_

“Come on, stop for a second.”

“No, I don’t wanna leave her alone with him for long.”

Well now Nadya’s thoroughly lost. Thankfully when she looks behind to the others she doesn’t seem to be the only one.

Lily takes them all passed the unofficial border of the party; where the lights don’t reach but a few stragglers chat and feed with donor’s permission by candlelight. The farther they go the worse her anxiety; but there’s no stopping now.

They finally round the roasted cashew cart and her brain doesn’t really register the fact that there’s nothing to immediately panic about.

Maricruz looks up at them with her arms crossed over her chest, expression set grim. Behind her Nadya vaguely recognizes the entry to one of the Den’s closed-off feeding areas — because apparently performance anxiety was a thing vampires could have.

“Are you okay baby?” Lily asks, and immediately slots herself against the other woman’s side. Maricruz nods and kisses her temple — but it’s an absent act; a physical reaction. Her mind is definitely elsewhere.

“‘M fine, _cariña.”_

“But —”

“He’s almost done.”

 _He_ pushes aside the curtain before Nadya, Adrian, or Kamilah can even begin to process what’s going on. He has to duck because obviously the Den wasn’t built with people his height in mind.

Cadence thumbs away a drop of blood from the corner of his mouth almost sheepishly. Despite having—apparently—just fed he looks haggard; hair tied back in a messy ponytail but falling around his face almost gaunt in the hollows of his cheeks.

He hauls up the strap of his shoulder bag a bit higher and only then realizes they have company. Even his smile is exhausted.

Nadya knows that if she opens her mouth right now the only thing that will come out is some variation of _“what the literal crap”_ so she does the smart thing… and keeps it shut.

_But… is anybody gonna say anything? Anything at all?_

“You know this man?” asks Kamilah, clipped and curt behind her. It takes Nadya a second to realize she’s asking Maricruz.

The smuggler kicks at the dirt under her heel. “Kinda.”

Adrian almost sounds relieved. “Cadence — what are you doing in New York?” 

_When did you get here? Why didn’t you tell Kathy? How the heck is this my life right now?_ Nadya still doesn’t say a word though which is probably for the best.

Though, thankfully, her stomach totally bottomed out on the run over here. So when the blond vampire looks _right at her_ there’s nowhere lower it could possibly go.

“I’m here because I need the Bloodkeeper’s help.”

Silence.

When someone speaks; Nadya’s as surprised as any of them when she recognizes the voice as her own.

“We should talk about this somewhere else.”

“I agree.”

“C’mon,” Maricruz jerks her head back to the heart of the Shadow Den; the party still swings without them, “we’ll go back to Matsuo’s.”

Not that they have many other options — and even if they did Maricruz is already marching on, Lily’s hand in hers, very much not looking back. They all start to follow — or _nearly all._

They’re already around a corner when Nadya notices Kamilah isn’t with them.

She looks back and the look on the vampiress’ face is… scary. Part of that fear is because she recognizes it too-well; because it’s the reason the two of them are the way they are right now.

The rest of it is because it’s so sudden; it takes Nadya by surprise.

“Kamilah?” she calls, and distantly hears the footsteps ahead of her stop, “Are you coming?”

It almost looks like she isn’t.

Then one step forward, and another, like she’s remembering how to walk. Nadya follows slow and purposefully at her side the whole way there.

* * *

The first thing Nadya realizes once the door closes behind them — she’s stuck in a tiny apartment full of vampires. And it’s not like _control_ has ever been on her side when it comes to these kinds of things.

Hopefully it won’t take long.

“I take it you haven’t made much progress with the Amulet?” Cadence asks, though judging by the already apologetic way he looks at Nadya he already knows the answer. “I see, I’m sorry to know that.”

“Why are you here?” It’s Kamilah who cuts to the chase; abrupt and almost _rude;_ and she’s not the only one who realizes it.

Adrian throws Kamilah a _look_ but it isn’t returned. She hasn’t looked away from Cadence from the moment he’d left the feeding den.

To his credit, the blond vampire remains calm even under her aggressive scrutiny. Not many can. “I came to try and help if I could. I spent a decade trying to find it; and though it might not have been any use to me personally I thought some of my research —” he pats the bag now resting in his lap, “— might prove useful.”

Which is great if it’s true. But Kamilah’s suspicion might just be rubbing off on her. Something about his attitude isn’t holding up.

“Why doesn’t Kathy know where you are?”

He doesn’t look away fast enough. Nadya doesn’t miss the flash of pain over his features. “This was an impulsive decision. I was going to tell her once I’d settled in… and once you had decided whether or not to accept my help.”

Adrian’s arms cross over his chest. “When did you arrive?”

“Just this afternoon. I spent the daylight hours at the train station and sought you out the moment I could. I have no desire to repeat what happened with Izzy.”

“Good move on your part.”

But Kamilah isn’t having it.

“I thought I was clear when I told you never to return to New York. Should I have followed it with a threat?”

“The threat was well-implied, Miss Sayeed.”

“And yet here you are.”

“I would think the threat the Amulet’s secrets pose were worth the risk.” He raises an eyebrow; meets her toe-to-toe and doesn’t back down. Nadya would be impressed if she didn’t know how badly things like this usually ended. And not against Kamilah’s favor.

“Do not speak to me of _risks._ I know better than anyone —”

Then Adrian is between them; Nadya didn’t register the distance slowly closing between the confronting vampires until he’s got a hand on each one’s shoulder and, from the looks of it, struggling to hold his fellow Council member back.

 _“Kamilah,”_ he tries to chide; actually has to swerve his head to get her to look away from Cadence and at him, “why are you acting like this?”

She doesn’t answer, but Nadya can guess pretty well on her own. Can’t say she hasn’t been feeling a little of that apprehension rolling off of the woman in waves herself, but she’s hoping it’s just Bloodkeeper projecting and not something she really feels.

But Cadence takes her silence as an opportunity to back down; literally. Instead he looks to Nadya.

“Not only that, but I wanted to apologize to you; to all of you.”

“For what?” Which might just be her stupidest question to date.

“For my actions at _Persephone,_ and for not being there to try and give this kind of help before. But when night fell and I was able to get to the others, you’d already left Louisiana.”

She shrugs. “It was important we got back.” _She had things to do after all. Vampires to break up with. Relationships to ruin. Depression to cry over._

“Of course, and I understand that. And I won’t do you the disservice of sitting here and saying my actions and intentions are entirely altruistic ones. I want to help you because it’s the right thing to do. But I hope you might return my offer with help of your own. Help only _you,_ Nadya, can provide.”

And there it is. _I’m here because I need the Bloodkeeper’s help._

Nadya holds up a hand to her friends before they can say anything in her stead. Whether they were planning to or not — she deserves the chance to speak first. They can’t begrudge her that, can they?

It’s her power. She can do what she wants with it. And frankly, after all the grief it’s caused her, the thought of doing some _good_ with it is nice.

“You want me to try and find your memories.”

“Yes,” and it helps that he seems almost apologetic for asking, “because I hate to admit it — and I think I’ve been avoiding admitting it for some time now — you might be the only avenue I have left. Every single lead has come up dry. It’s been a century now… and I’m tired of getting my hopes up if I’m honest.”

Nadya wrings her hands together in her lap. “I don’t… I mean I _want_ to help, Cadence, please understand that. And if I know that I can then yeah, let’s do it. But this isn’t something I have control of. I don’t even know if it’ll work.”

“It will.”

“I thought you weren’t getting your hopes up?”

“You misunderstand, see I _know_ it will — because it already has.”

The only one who doesn’t look surprised is Maricruz, but she also doesn’t seem to have been paying attention since this began. She looks at Lily and judges the context from there.

Though even among those in the know the reactions are mixed. Adrian looks the good kind of surprised and that’s sensible; he was the first one to try and help after all. But Kamilah couldn’t be more opposite; she melts the emotion away easily but not before Nadya has a chance to see it for what it is — fear.

And Cadence, well, he’s getting kind of excited. “I’ve always known I served on account of the uniform, but I’ve never had a lick of a memory about the war itself. _But now I do,_ Nadya, I do. It was so small, a roaring engine and fellow soldiers and what I think were bombs falling in the trenches. All fragments, really. Beautiful, wonderfully complex and confusing fragments. And it’s all thanks to you.” He leans forward and takes her hands in his. Nadya can’t tell if she’s the one shaking, or he is, or maybe they both are.

 _“Flechette,_ remember? You and Izzy.”

And she definitely remembers now. Awakening from unconsciousness, Isadora de la Rosa having been digging around in her head like she was an abandoned bin of winter clothes in the back of a garage. Cadence had been unconscious, and when he’d come to…

He sees the recognition across her face. “I should apologize for that, too. I couldn’t wrap my mind around it, and it was so fleeting… but you know how strange it is, don’t you. To have your entire life, all the things you can point to and know and name, and then suddenly there’s something new. Something you can feel in your bones is the truth.”

When Nadya swallows it feels like there’s glass in her throat. “And… you’re looking around, and you know what’s going to happen next because you—you _lived it._ But then you didn’t, and you’re still surprised.”

“But like a dream it never lasts long.”

“And you’re left wondering what was real and what was your imagination. _Yes.”_

If Nadya had known how good it would feel to have someone understand — _actually understand;_ not because the memories were theirs but because they didn’t know what was going on just like she didn’t know what was going on — she would have laid out a red carpet for the guy.

Calling it _nice_ doesn’t even scrape against what it really is, but there’s a relief there too. She holds on to that.

“You’re my last shot, Nadya,” Cadence insists; Nadya believes him utterly, “not only that you’re the _only shot_ that’s yielded results. I think I’d given up a long time ago and not even realized it. Because to have hope for the first time… well, _ever?”_

She nods. She gets it — and not just because the longer her body heat has the chance to seep into his skin the more that starts to bleed through the cracks. Nadya yanks her hands away but luckily he doesn’t seem too insulted.

Adrian clears his throat and draws their attention. Pulls them out of their little world of _someone who gets what it’s like to be someone and yourself and not knowing who either really is._

“Actually, this is a unique opportunity to study an actual measure to your abilities, Nadya.” He makes a point of ignoring the appalled silence radiating off of Kamilah beside him. “That is; if the both of you agree to a documented study.”

“Not a fan of how you’re making me sound like a lab rat.”

“You know what I mean.”

She does. And throwing a look Cadence’s way — he does, too.

“But we can hammer out the finer details tomorrow,” because he hasn’t missed Lily’s bouncing leg or the change of muffled music beyond the door, “because I think the hostess of the party has been away from it for long enough, wouldn’t you say Lily?”

“Lily would say,” Lily says, “Lily would _definitely_ say.”

Cadence initially tries to back out but Lily won’t have it — though she does forget to tell him to duck before pulling him out of the apartment and he ends up stumbling with a red mark on his forehead. Maricruz follows at their heels and Adrian looks ready to join close behind — but he stops when he realizes no one else is coming along.

“Nadya? Kamilah? Are you coming?”

She knows what it looks like when someone is looking _through you_ rather than _at you._ That’s why it hurts so much seeing it from eyes she’s always thought so beautiful; so boundless.

Nadya doesn’t regret ever falling for Kamilah. But at times like this — when she’s more content to twist herself up in her own concerns and shut everyone; shut Nadya out — she finds herself wondering how exactly she ended up doing so in the first place.

“Yeah, Adrian, I’m coming.”

She follows him out; and this time she doesn’t look back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A little bit of soft and lighthearted peace before the inevitable darkness. Comments and critique would be fabulous. Thank you for reading!


	14. The Summons

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When the Amulet of Nero is stolen from within Raines Corp. the time comes to call a special Summons of the Council. And that's just what Gaius wanted.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **chapter content warnings:** blood, violence, language, death, hallucinations

Nadya waits on the curbside for twenty minutes. Tells herself he probably just got caught in traffic or something. It had snowed for the better part of the day; that wet, sticky kind of snow that clung to roadsides and turned luxury cars (however practical Adrian insisted they be) into useless little wagons.  


Even she’s a little disappointed in herself for waiting that long and not just making her way to the subway. She’s gotten spoiled.

[TEXT]: hope ur ok. grabbing the subway instead

By the time the metal cars squeal into her stop Nadya is suitably confused. It’s not like Adrian not to read his messages. Out of the underground she tries to call — the phone rings three times then straight to voice mail.

Confusion melts into worry when she tries Kamilah instead — same thing; _ring. ring. ring_ and nothing.

There might have been a few more steps in between, but when Nadya turns the corner to the sight of flashing red and blue lights and three police cars in front of Raines Corp. she jumps all the way up to panic and breaks out in a run for the building entrance.

“Miss, this is a closed scene.”

“I’m an employee.” She fumbles for the badge she so rarely uses down in her purse, fingers shaking from fear and the cold and she’s never really done well with authority figures so the deep-set frown the officer fixates on her isn’t helping. When she finally fishes it out, though, the uniform looks away — couldn’t care less.

“You need to leave, miss.”

“Hello, can’t you read?” Nadya raises her voice and tries to press her badge a little harder into the woman’s line of sight. The responding glare she gets is _not_ a kind one.

_Bad move, bad move bad move —_

Thank god she catches sight of Adrian and Kamilah through the revolving door. And she doesn’t feel the least bit sorry when Kamilah breezes her way through and all but throws the cop to the slushy curb to bring her inside.

“What’s going on?” Nadya looks around; latches herself to the woman’s side because relationship-be-darned there are people in black jackets carrying boxes and kits and officers in uniform and suits everywhere and she’s never seen anything like this outside of _Most Wanted._ “Kamilah — what happened?”

Halfway to Adrian and still without an answer Nadya stops, digs her heels into the tile slippery from melted snow and grabs onto Kamilah’s sleeve. It’s enough to stop her but she can tell right away the vampiress is distracted in a way Nadya isn’t sure she’s ever seen the like of.

“What happened?” she tries again, and finally _(finally)_ Kamilah focuses on her.

“There was a break-in.”

 _What?_ “Here?” _Dumb question._ “What—when—is anyone—or—what —”

Hands heavy with the weight of ages fall on her shoulders and its almost scary how naturally she relaxes under them. Something Kamilah notices too, without a doubt, but neither of them comment on because there’s too much going on.

Nadya gathers herself under that touch. Only when she’s at least _mostly_ certain her words will come out in the right order does she try again.

“Is anyone hurt?”

“Three security guards were killed.” She says it so easily. Nadya covers her mouth with the back of her hand. 

Kamilah continues; “Adrian was able to get to me before the police, but there are protocols that must be followed for businesses such as ours. To our benefit, Lester has most of the detectives here under his thumb. We wait until they complete the official paperwork to discuss this, is that understood?”

Which is harsh, even by Kamilah’s standards. Especially seeing as Nadya’s on the verge of blubbering panicked right now, because even under the normal scents of metal and the night janitor’s floor polish she catches the familiar smell coming through the air vents.

_Blood._

“Kamilah…” How is it that after everything she’s seen and done she still manages to sound so frightened?

Thankfully though the woman seems to catch herself. She slides her palms down to Nadya’s upper arms; feels the trembling beneath her coat and presses in with her thumbs. Something familiar, something grounding.

Nadya swallows around the lump in her throat. “This is too much of a coincidence, isn’t it?”

_After all who just wakes up one afternoon and decides to rob a biotech corporation?_

Kamilah confirms her fears with a nod. “It was an impulsive act, but the wounds are unmistakable.”

_Vampires._

Trying to play dumb would only be willful ignorance at this point. There’s no other reason vampires would break into the building.

The moment Nadya understands Kamilah is there to hold her steady; like she was waiting for it.

“Yes, Nadya. They took the Amulet.”

It shouldn’t be any consolation that she can feel the worry ebbing into Kamilah’s voice normally so sure and steady. Or that when she can feel her legs solid enough to keep walking Adrian looks at the pair of them over a detective’s shoulder with a face so worn from exhaustion.

It shouldn’t be, but it is a little bit.

Because the city has to bring in a coroner it takes more than a few hours for everything to clear up. Nadya takes it upon herself to stand outside and give calm and understanding explanations to the employees who had the misfortune of showing up for work anyway — and maybe she does it with a little extra side-eye to the officer who had given her so much trouble in the beginning, maybe she doesn’t.

Could she be blamed?

Only when sunrise starts to peek over the man-made horizon does Nadya realize who exactly Kamilah had been referring to when she mentioned some of the detectives were on their side — or at least on their payroll. They’re the ones who don’t question it when Adrian starts up a fuss about how long the force has been taking in his lobby, about how exhausted he is; whatever it takes to get them to clear out as fast as possible.

She makes sure to throw a sympathetic smile his way. Nadya knows how much he hates having to put on the airs of a corporate douche (Jax’s words, not hers in the slightest). And she can tell he tries to return it as much as he can… but it’s a lot for him.

When the atrium finally empties and Nadya has shooed away most of the crowd they venture down to the labs.

Nadya finds it strange to think only a few days ago she was down here with the rest of them. The pristine white space not bothered by crime scene tape or the smudges of fingerprinting powder on every surface. Part of her wants to look away from the blood splatters hovering ominous without bodies to place them. The rest of her feels like she has a responsibility to bear witness.

In an impressive display of strength the large steel door is nearly ripped from the hinges. The bolt sealing it shut is still partially inside the wall. Whoever broke in was in a rush — yanking open drawers and cabinets until they found what they were looking for and careless to whatever was in their way. Now all the files and even a few chemical tubes are strewn across the floor in disarray.

She carefully avoids stepping in the pool of dried blood just in front of the vault entrance.

“It’s as though they didn’t know where to look,” comments Adrian as he crosses the taped-off doorway, “only what they were looking for.”

Nadya recalls briefly the sight of Kamilah in these very basements on the other side of the building. Where she lifted the stone lid from Lily’s empty coffin without so much as a furrowed brow.

“So we don’t have to guess who did this, right?” She looks between the vampires and hates that they all share the same thought. “They tore through solid steel like it was paper.”

It was their fault for pretending like the Trinity _wouldn’t_ come for the Amulet. A darker, more cynical part of Nadya is surprised they didn’t try something like this sooner.

Still — it would be nice if either one of them had something helpful to say. But neither of them do, and the silence tries achingly to make them accept the truth.

“We must assume the worst;” Kamilah admits with a heavy sigh, “that the Amulet is now in Gaius’ possession, or nearly so. It’s time we summoned the Council, Adrian. We can’t keep them in the dark any longer — not if we have any hope of getting them on our side.”

Nadya frowns. “Why wouldn’t they be? This is _Gaius_ we’re talking about. You all stood up to him once before.”

“Yes — and if you recall it was the hardest thing we have ever had to do.”

“Which means it should be easier the second time around.”

Adrian’s voice takes her by surprise as he exits the vault.

“I wouldn’t be so sure of that.”

She can’t believe what she’s hearing. “And why is that?”

“Just because. You’ve felt it too I’m guessing —” the vampires exchange looks that Nadya doesn’t quite recognize, that has her whirling around back and forth until she’s so dizzy she might fall just to try and understand what isn’t being said out loud, “— ever since I saw the empty sarcophagus it’s like he’s been looming over me; a shadow I can’t quite see.”

Hesitantly Kamilah nods. “I’ve found myself entertaining thoughts I never would have in the last century. It was only a matter of time before his influence began to reach out to us, unfettered. And if _we_ have felt it there is little doubt Cecil and Lester have as well. Even if they aren’t conscious of the truth.”

Nadya bites her lip; chews it so hard she nearly breaks skin.

“Is that why you’ve been acting weird, Adrian?”

He nods once; curt and like just that little act causes him an immense pain.

 _When I said I wanted answers…_ but she doesn’t finish the thought. There are more important things to do.

“Then let’s get it over with.”

* * *

Nadya wipes her forehead with the back of her hand again — this exhale just as shaky as the last. _She had_ not _thought this through._

“Are you _sure_ you’re okay for this?” Lily asks and, just like the three times previous, Nadya nods with lips pursed tight to keep them from wobbling with strain.

Because she couldn’t _not_ be here now. She has to see this through. Only the last time she was in this particular room it hadn’t gone so well, had it? The memories of that awful throne and now she has the displeasure of knowing the voice of the wretched man who once sat upon it and both of those things echo inside her skull in a surround sound she can only describe as _sickening._

It’s saying a lot that she prefers hearing the red-faced rage of the Baron over whispers of ghostly memories. Neither are preferable, but not much Nadya can do to change it now.

“What do you mean, _‘the Sarcophagus is empty?!’”_

Lester tries to appear like he’s sitting the picture of the calm his fellow Council member isn’t. But his bouncing leg betrays him. “Not to say anything against your credit, Kamilah, but are you certain you weren’t perhaps _imagining_ things?” His smarmy smile isn’t returned by any of the five faces all turning to glare at him as one.

 _“What?_ I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t had similar ones over the years.”

Jax’s brow ticks in frustration. “And what are you saying about Raines and I, then?”

“Bite your damn tongue, boy!” The Baron’s face bulges with every word, like the pounding of his temples might swell his head before he pops inside of his tight and outdated collar. Of the three of them Nadya wouldn’t have expected _him_ to have the worst reaction of the three.

And while she tries not to compare the ramblings of a guy like _Lester_ with her own, she instead focuses on Priya — the uncharacteristically silent one. 

She doesn’t know much about the former youngest of the Council, only what Adrian had told her in his brief run-down of what to expect now that she was his assistant in all things business _and_ vampiric. Priya was the only one of the seated members (barring Jax, now) who wasn’t Turned by Gaius. The Council had their enterprises sure but she was _Priya Lacroix._ She ran a fashion _empire._ Even the likes of Lily and Nadya — meaning those who had never spent more than department store prices on a pair of jeans — knew her label and the outrageous trends she was known for creating.

At Adrian’s trial, Nadya had learned the hard way that Priya was on no one’s team but her own. Back then that had meant siding with Vega.

 _What did it mean now,_ she wonders, and holds her churning stomach at all the ways that little thought alone could go wrong for them.

To Kamilah’s credit she waits until the Baron has stopped huffing and puffing to continue.

“It was no illusion. The Onyx Sarcophagus was unbound and opened. For some time, from the looks of it. Surely you’ve felt his reach even if you had no name for it until now. 

“If you still have trouble taking me at my word Cecil, then I ask you this; when was the last time you remember seeing your key?”

Lester thinks he’s subtle when he reaches to pat his trouser pockets. But the relief on his face is clear, even when he catches Adrian staring at him from across their semi-circle of seats. “Don’t look at me! I have mine!”

A grinding noise makes the vampires and their sensitive ears flinch. All but Priya, who continues to let her stone chair chip away at her manicure as a look of bewildered anger darkens her normally sultry expression.

“I can’t remember. Why the _fuck_ can’t I remember?!”

The Baron tears open his collar to reveal more of his flushed chest; which does nothing for Nadya’s upset stomach. Lily dramatically buries her face into Maricruz’s shoulder as though to shield herself from blindness. On her left, Cadence swallows down a gagging noise.

“I— _Where is my damned key?!”_

He goes to point an accusatory finger at Kamilah, but is cut off by Adrian before he can say something he’ll very likely regret.

“It’s our belief that once the keys were taken from us, a very thin layer of psychic suggestion was put in place to keep us from looking. Enough time had passed that we weren’t checking up on him frequently.”

“Well no shit,” Priya grumbles, “the last time I did it the smell of his rot stunk up my favorite Amur shawl.” She pulls a stunned nail file from her messy high-bun and starts about fixing the damage done.

Even Adrian looks like he can’t believe the day has come where he and Priya agree on something. “Sure, that… too.”

“But who would be so foolish?” asks Lester. “We all knew the dangers of his ideas — and what he would do to us if he was ever freed.”

Kamilah clenches her jaw. The Baron doesn’t miss it and throws her a sneer.

“Having regrets, _Your Highness?”_ Though every trace of his accusation withers under her red-eyed stare.

“You would do well to watch your tongue, Cecil.” And Nadya sees the way she shifts tense in her seat; the look she throws the throne beside her under the guise of closing her eyes and gathering herself. It makes her want to run across the Chamber to Kamilah and hold her tight. To make promises that everything was going to be okay even if she didn’t know whether or not it was the truth.

“If you recall, it was my betrayal that sealed his fate.”

Priya scoffs. “We have just as much to lose as you if he’s coming for us.”

“Oh he’s coming for us all right… make no mistake there.” And though his voice wavers in fear Priya doesn’t deem Lester’s warning worth a reply.

“Unfortunately, Lester is right.”

Kamilah, Adrian, and Jax trade silent nods. They’ve come this far — and without the Amulet going back is impossible. The men defer to Kamilah and the authority of her years.

A burden she doesn’t take lightly. “As I’m sure you’ve guessed, this is something Jax, Adrian, and myself have known about for some time. It was our hope to deal with the situation swiftly and silently; to prevent this very Summons from occurring. But to keep you in the dark is no longer an option, not without putting you and your Clans in significant danger.”

“The _world_ is in danger as long as that mad king roams free, Kamilah.” Lester says with a sigh. Kamilah doesn’t disagree, but continues.

“In our investigation we’ve come to learn several things. Firstly, Gaius has had an agent acting under his orders for a decade at the least, though it’s more likely that he has kept Jameson under his thumb the entire length of his imprisonment.”

The other Council members react with mixed shock and anger.

“Jameson? But he always seemed so… demure.”

 _“Eugh,_ I always knew he was a freak. Anyone that obsessed with frock coats would be.”

The Baron growls at Kamilah yet again. “Am I the only one remembering just whose Clan he was part of?”

“Of course not Cecil,” Kamilah snaps back, “but it was not I who _made_ him. And we all know the power of a Maker’s thrall. Taking into account that Jameson and Isseya both are naturally gifted in the psychic arts…”

With a _snap_ Priya’s file breaks in two; half splintering in her closed fist while the other slips and falls to her heel. “That bitch is involved?”

“Both of the Trinity are,” Adrian answers; gives Kamilah what looks like a much-needed respite with a short nod and by while leaning with his elbows on his knees, “and its more than likely they have been since the Awakening Ball, at the very least. Which brings me to our next point… and the reason we called this Summons tonight.

“Under Gaius’ orders, they have been hunting down the Amulet of Nero. The Trinity’s third was tasked with keeping it hidden until Gaius had need of it, but when the man died the Amulet’s location was lost with him. I was able to track the Amulet down to a supernatural auction in New Orleans and securely bring it back.”

It would be a valiant summary to a heroic story… if he didn’t leave it with an awkward silence. And by now the rest of the Council — well they’ve already gotten so much bad news already in such a short amount of time. Nadya doesn’t blame them for waiting for the other pin to drop.

“But?” presses Lester. Even Priya — though maybe more so now because she doesn’t have anything to distract herself with — seems rapt with attention.

_“But despite his best efforts, my little soldier always seems to fall just short of the mark.”_

Back at _Persephone,_ Nadya just knew the Trinity was alone; that Gaius wasn’t with them. Didn’t know how she knew or what it would have even felt like if he was there.

It would have felt like this. An oppressive, suffocating heaviness in the air seeping its way both into her throat and wrapping around her from the outside. Squeezing, tightening with every breath; filling her with terror and anger and (nauseatingly) a kind of joy that should never be associated with the smell of _death_ that wafts into the Chamber and into her every pore.

_Tap. Tap. Tap._

If his very presence wasn’t so terrifying she might have the stomach left to laugh. Gaius doesn’t bother with a glamour this time — no he’s much too pleased for that. The joy whistling between his rotting teeth as he descends the steps into the Chamber and looks out on them all with a literally lip-splitting grin.

The night wind howling above the city filters down and screams like a thousand roused graves. They dance around him, make the wisps of his hair shift around his hollowed face, and disperse like an omen around them.

_Witness him. Behold him. Tremble before the King of Vampires._

All around Nadya the vampires rise together; a front united in only one thing — fear. Just like at dinner she stays seated but there’s no willful defiance here. She just can’t move. 

Like that stops Gaius from honing in on her anyway. “I told you Nadya — that throne is mine still, even after all these years. Such a tragedy that the pretenders to my kingdom haven’t taken care of it as they should have, though.”

Lily and Maricruz step in front of her — she appreciates the gesture but wants to scream at them to run and save themselves. _I’ve seen what he can do. I don’t want that for you._ But she doesn’t, not even when she feels the towering form of Cadence at her back.

And Kamilah is so far away…

Strange that the thing that gets her to stand is the sight of Jameson coming up behind his Master’s back. Like a caricature, huddled behind Gaius like an immortal shield. Seeing him brings her to a boiling point, makes her remember living through Lily’s death—living through her _murder_ —and all the pain it caused, continues to cause…

“What are you doing here?”

The only ones surprised when Valdas and Isseya appear at the rear of Gaius’ awful entourage are the Trinity themselves. Mortified, Valdas stares at Cadence and grabs for his lover’s hand. She takes it wordlessly; her expression unreadable.

“Now now Valdemaras, this isn’t the time.”

Just like before; his pretty words so cold and cruel. How they make him recoil, how they make Kamilah’s eyes flash with the briefest hint of pity.

The Council are equals but they bend to Kamilah on this — let the eldest be the first to step forward on the chopping block.

“Gaius.”

He fixates on her in a flash of milk-white eyes. His sunken features barely able to hold his twisted frown.

“Kamilah, my Queen.”

The word stings her like a slap to the face, but Kamilah keeps her composure.

“The years haven’t been kind.”

“No, I suppose they haven’t.” He reaches up and presses at his skin with fingers that aren’t in much better shape. Priya tries not to gag and might even turn her face away if she weren’t fixated on him in terror.

“And who do I have to thank for that, I wonder?”

Kamilah inclines her head but says nothing. Adrian steps up behind her, ever at her back. And if he’d hoped to draw Gaius’ attention away it worked — and a little too well at that.

“And Adrian, my lovely little soldier. Don’t think I’ve forgotten about the part you played all those years ago.”

“I would hope you ha—”

_“Sssh…”_

All Gaius has to do is hold up a finger and the entire Chamber falls silent. The vampires, the wind; Nadya even finds her thoughts waiting on hesitant breath to hear what he has to say. How it feels so terribly _vitally_ important.

It makes him croon in satisfaction. “Much better. I hate to see how quickly you’ve forgotten your manners; all of you. But I suppose it’s to be expected when you don’t have a guiding hand to show you the way.”

Slow and purposeful he strides deeper into the Chamber. His cape catches on the packed dirt underfoot but it’s just another way for the literal world to yield to him. “I should thank you, first, for convening yourselves and saving me the trouble. I would have hated to have to hunt you down one by one — this way retribution will be swift and just.

“But the real reason I’m here is to offer my congratulations.” But Jameson, ever gleeful, is the only one who claps. “You’ve had a very profitable… how many years was it? Ninety-nine, I think? Part of me almost wished to wait and make it an even century. But I could not find enough benevolence in me to give you the satisfaction… as they say — nobody’s perfect.

“But I wonder if you have given ample time to consider the ramifications of your success. How far back you’ve bent to this sniveling population of chattel in pursuit of your backwards notions of them. The belief that they are somehow _equal_ to us given sheer numbers alone.

“The infestation of them would not have spread so far had you not committed such a heinous crime.”

“Our only crime was defying you!” Adrian spits out, red-faced and the exertion it takes to resist whatever spell he holds them all under shows in the sweat beading on his brow.

“And that was crime enough!”

All around Nadya the vampires flinch as if struck by the back of an invisible hand. Even Jameson, who recoils away but refuses to let himself be lumped in among the masses of those Gaius deems as traitors.

For a walking corpse though, it’s impressive how quickly he regains his composure. Just as quick as he had lost it. He smooths back the wisps of his hair and eases blind rage into the same yellowing smile.

“Ninety-nine years is a long time. Though I’m sure I don’t need to tell any of you that.” He gestures wide to the Council at large, open arms spread in the same arrogant pride has he had at the banquet table.

“Long enough for you to become titans of industry and advancement, and to grow complacent in your greatest lies. You have deluded yourselves, my children, into thinking that you live in times of peace. You believed the evil vanquished and the world spared of a so-called _price_ which you deemed too high… despite not being the ones who would have to make it.

“Some might call this _loyalty._ I would call it treachery. Your loyalty should never have been to humans, to the plague of them that stretches across the world. It should have been to _me._

“But I suppose the only one truly at fault is myself.” Gaius hangs his head forlornly. “Somewhere along the line… I must have been too _lax,_ too _forgiving._ I followed the tools She gave me to the letter and yet even in the first of my line I could never inspire quite the same devotion as She could. Not without the missing link.”

His grey palm twists upwards and the fire pits lining the Chamber walkway catch on glittering gold and red. The Amulet of Nero rests, neatly cradled in offering; as though it belonged there. Then it isn’t Gaius holding anyone captive, not any longer — the Amulet does that job for him perfectly, possibly even better.

A fact that isn’t lost on him. Reverence choking at his voice as he gives his audience the chance to admire it.

“It is to my understanding that you’ve been hard at work trying to open the Amulet. Points for understanding it is not the Amulet itself that holds the power but what lies within it. Though I suspect, my dearest Bloodqueen, you have a little something to do with that.”

Kamilah glares down at him. And would very well take his words and impale him on them if she could. He’s giving her the chance to speak but she can’t—or won’t—take it.

She doesn’t want to give him the satisfaction.

Gaius knows this, and seems heartbroken by it. “I see, and this is truly the path you wish to take?” But again the only reply is the hollow quiet. He thumbs the gemstone almost absentmindedly.

“Very well.”

Gaius throws his head back, familiarity gently shaking away a head of thick hair no longer there. Watching his fangs descend is more like seeing maggots crawl from an open wound — something Nadya has never seen in person and now will never need to. They’re as stained and rotting inside-out like the rest of the teeth left in his skull and surely they once have must been long and proud; something of a status symbol. Not anymore.

But they are no less sharp. And in the silent hall the wet sound of those fangs sinking into the sagging flesh of his exposed wrist is terrible; just like the stench of foul death that follows. Nadya tells herself it’s a trick of the (lack of) light that when he pulls back the blood dripping from his mouth is almost black.

“Nothing you could have attempted would have proven fruitful,” says Gaius, mouth full of his own blood that spills down his chin through his smile, “because only the purest of blood could relinquish the spell here. Nothing so diluted as what filthy muck most of you had crawled from; not even that of my own line. Only those Turned with the blessing of the Goddess would be able to ensure Her return… I made sure of that.”

His self-inflicted wound takes its sweet time to heal. Plenty of time for him to bring the Amulet close, cradled like a fragile trinket (which was definitely not the case, and they had a list of ways that had been proven) and let his blood _drip—drip—drip_ over the jewel with purpose.

Whatever enchantment was holding it closed was also holding the true nature of the thing _back_ — that much is obvious. The latch of it comes undone so soft she doesn’t hear a thing, then he pries the pieces apart with a rotted thumb. The Amulet’s influence comes in waves so strong Nadya, too, can finally feel them. Feels the magnetic pull of it and she wonders with all of her awe if she were to jump from the ground wound it bring her ever closer, would it finally then have hold over her?

She has the sense not to, thank god, but Lily’s knees buckle under the pressure. Nadya and Maricruz hold her up quickly, Nadya’s sleeve wiping away the sweat at her temples.

“It’s…” She struggles to find the words. Lily Always-With-Something-To-Say Spencer is speechless. And she’s not alone.

Even the man himself gazes in reverence. Plucks something from the heart of the locket and lets it fall away, unenchanted and plain, back to the dirt where it belongs. Its contents are its value. Gaius holds it up to the light; a little red vial, no bigger than her thumb, with designs on the glass that catch in the dancing flames.

Nadya realizes a bit too (foolishly) late that it isn’t the vial that glitters, but what’s inside of it. Blood, undeniably blood, but the brightest and most beautiful blood she’s ever seen. What she had thought was the reflection of light is actually flecks of gold dancing within it.

Dancing to a song that, if she closes her eyes and listens with all her might, Nadya thinks she can hear.

_The blood of the First Vampire._

And they understand all at once and in a horrifying way exactly what he plans on doing with it.

He breaks the vial’s waxy seal and raises it in his sole cheers. “To my good health.”

_“NO!”_

Flecks of blood dot across Kamilah’s cheek. But she and the rest of the Council are still held immobile by the power of the vial, no longer captivated but forced to behold it. All but Adrian, his own blood dripping red and violent from his nose; his ears. Breaking out from the vial’s spell—from _Gaius’_ spell—has him pale and shaking, and whatever willpower he found to do it is stronger than his ability to heal.

Nadya watches with tears burning in her eyes and teeth clenched in a struggle between wanting to keep him safe and needing him to save _them._

Her cries — silent but desperate. _Please Adrian, please!_

She’d like to think he _almost_ makes it. Optimistic failure — that’s what her life has been reduced to. But it’s better than nothing, even if it’s still failure.

Adrian falls to his knees with Gaius just out of reach. He struggles, maybe he even knows its in vain, but reaching out as he does, still trying to claw his way to the vial, fighting through agony — it just hurts.

“Aagh!” When he yields its clutching his head, its threatening to tear out clumps of his hair and more blood falling down his face and sticking awful to his lips. “My… hh-head…”

His Maker looks down not with _disdain_ but with _pity._

“Time and time again my soldiers keep disappointing me,” he laments; like _he’s_ the wounded party when Adrian hadn’t managed to lay a finger on him, “First Valdemaras, then Banner… I had hoped to break the cycle with you, Adrian. My strong Adrian… a little _too_ willful at the end but I would expect nothing less.”

“You bas… bas…” But whatever is hurting him is too much. Gaius sighs.

“That is enough, Jameson. He’s earned his last words.”

Behind him the psychic vampire withdraws; pulls his hand back and instantly Adrian slumps to the ground. Too weak even to stop the way Gaius brushes the back of a grey finger over his cheek.

“Don’t you dare touch him!” snarls Kamilah.

Gaius looks up to her sharply.

“Now — a few last efforts I may tolerate. But such blatant disrespect is beneath you, Kamilah. You would dare _order me?”_

“Do not. dare. touch him. Gaius.”

And with that — he’s done. He steps back in a flourish, his warped face twisted in rage. “Enough of this insolence! You’ve forgotten manners, respect — you have forgotten to fear me. But that will change.”

He looks down at Adrian, struggling on his shaking limbs — fighting to stand, and shoves his progeny down beneath his heel. Gone is the man who found amusement in their torment, in playing sick games and offering speeches with false praise.

With Adrian trapped under his heel Gaius raises the vial to his lips and downs the contents whole.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So as of this chapter’s initial posting on _August 26,_ it looks like to fully cover everything I want to when it comes to _Destiny II_ and the _BB2_ storyline the book will be split into 2 parts. Or 2 books, essentially. Either that or you get a 60+ chapter monstrosity. Pop the champagne? Or... given what Nadya and everyone are about to face perhaps not. Comments and critique would be fabulous. Thank you for reading!
> 
>  **FAKECAPPED:** check out the climactic ending of this chapter [**[HERE]**](https://clansayeed.tumblr.com/post/627530356392919040/oblivion-bound-fake-caps-8-bound-by)


	15. The King of Vampires

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gaius wastes no time taking back his kingdom. The Clans are disbanded, Nadya and her friends are on the run, and there's a giant sinkhole in the middle of Central Park. The bare bones of a plan turns their sights overseas... But not everyone intends on making the trip.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **chapter content warnings:** language, violence, blood, death (minor character), hearing voices

_“Though you may not have known it, you have been waiting for me from the moment you were reborn. Your blood is my blood. You have yearned for me without name, without understanding — for too long._   


_“But no longer. For I have returned to claim my kingdom in Her name. And all will rejoice in the spoils as we take our rightful place on this Earth.”_

Cold air biting at her cheeks, stinging in her eyes turning tears into acid carving paths through her skin, a burning like the end of the world in her lungs. Muscles screaming, tearing; she’s being torn apart ripped to ribbons head on a pike blood warm and wet soaked into her clothes, down her skin slick and sumptuous.

His eyes burning like the sun into her soul.

Wailing sirens all around and she can’t tell what isn’t a scream, what isn’t her screaming. Which of those screams are her and which of them are the parts of her that aren’t _her,_ that are _them,_ and the ones that have already fallen.

Gaius makes good on his promises.

A shadow passes over the moon and Nadya swears on her life that it’s him, that he’s found them, that they were foolish for running it was only a matter of time before he flew down from the heavens and set them on fire from the inside out. She screams — knows this time it’s her because of the daggers in her lungs from the effort of it — but the helicopter is dangerously low to the treetops and the blades down her out as three of them whip over her head.

She doesn’t realize she’s fallen to her knees until a strong pair of hands haul her up and the skin stings.

“We have to keep moving. Do you understand me, Nadya?” Adrian grips her upper arms in a too-tight grip. He doesn’t mean to shake her but he does — he’s shaking too. “Nadya — _Nadya!”_

She watches a trembling hand come up to thumb away the crust of dried blood from his upper lip. Takes her a second to realize its her own. _She doesn’t feel real. She feels like him, like them; like everyone else and all of their screams tear at the back of her throat._

“Adrian!”

He looks ahead where the others have stopped in the middle of the park path. Nadya can see the imprint of Gaius’ boot in dirt on the back of his neck.

“We’re too exposed here!” Jax shouts from up ahead. “We need to get underground _now!”_

Every time something streaks across the night sky all Nadya can see is Gaius, rising and _so so bright_ and full of vibrant unearthly life. She can still feel the columns of the Chamber rumbling, crumbling, tumbling down bringing the world above down with it filled with dirt and debris and the bones of ages long-gone.

The gateway statue falling head-first two feet in front of her.

The night sky and her stars shining through the plumes of smoke and dirt; the moon as a spotlight on all the things dark and dangerous in the world.

Adrian whirls back to face her and his tears are her tears are his tears and no matter who they belong to they break her heart anyway.

_“Nadya… please.”_

She chokes on her words when they crawl all the way up her throat. 

“You — you can’t. We can’t —” _—why are we doing this why are we running oh god he’s right behind us or Valdas is or Priya or Jameson or any one we can’t do this we can’t we can’t wecan’t—_ “— what are we _doing?_ We can’t outrun…”

_A god?_

Nadya slaps a hand over her mouth and tastes dirt with her tears. Every sob wrenched from her guttural, angry; terrified. She wants to pull away but knows she doesn’t have the strength to stand on her own two feet without him.

“We can’t outrun him, Adrian.”

“We can _try.”_

It hurts; putting one foot in front of the other — over and over again until she’s running. Her hand clinging desperately to his, slipping through sweat and blood but he never leaves her stranded.

It hurts so much. She does it anyway.

When they reach Times Square the world is ending just enough that seven ragged survivors don’t make much of a difference.

They stop because Kamilah has stopped. Kamilah who doesn’t know what to do, doesn’t know how to save them from this, but she’s the oldest and that means it always defaults to her doesn’t it? She stares up in an eerie sort of calm and that means they stare up, too.

News crews have already reached the scene. Vans on the ground trying to get as close as they can amid the debris and helicopters overhead hoping for the best angle for whatever dares to emerge from the sinkhole that erupted out of nowhere in the middle of Central Park.

The chaotic bustle of Times Square has come to a grinding halt as everyone; pedestrians, drivers, tourists, all hold their breaths and wait for whatever comes next.

 _They don’t have to wait. They know._ And Nadya wants to claw herself from Adrian’s grasp and run to the old woman a yard away and shake her and scream in her face _“Run now you don’t know what’s coming!”_ or to the business man relaying everything he’s seeing on the large omniscient screens into the bluetooth in his ear _“He’s going to kill you, get away while you still can!”_

But that would draw attention. That would lead him straight to them.

Maricruz hangs up her call and, with one final look at her phone, snaps it backwards and in half. Her face is stoic but that doesn’t stop how her voice betrays her. “Arnold’s on his way.”

Jax nods and wipes the sweat from his temples with the back of his hand. It just smears wet dirt over his face. He doesn’t look like he cares much.

 _What are they doing,_ Nadya wants to ask as they seclude themselves away in an alley facing away from the endless on-sight reporting happening in brilliant HD above them; away from the attention.

 _Where are they going,_ she wants to ask when Adrian ushers her into the familiar beat-up white van, when Arnold slams his boot on the accelerator before she even has her footing.

_Why are they running?_

He’ll find them. If he doesn’t know where they are already. Nadya can still feel the awful, violating tendrils of him lashing out violently for her mind. Eager, not desperate, but demanding to invade her. And surely she can’t be the only one.

She looks up. Watches as Lily has her hands restrained by Jax to keep her from slamming the heels of her palms into her skull. Sees Cadence with his glasses broken in his lap and eyes squeezed shut trying to block it out. Tries to get Kamilah to catch her gaze but she’s just two feet to the left and worlds away at the same time.

She’s not the only one.

 _“From this moment forward there is no_ Council. _There are no_ Clans. _We are one people, glorious and powerful and we will take what is ours! We will take back the kingdom I promised you so long ago.”_

It was one thing being Nadya and watching while Gaius stopped Lester’s attempted flight to freedom with nothing more than an outstretched hand. It was another thing entirely being Lester himself and feeling the darkness, the pulsating power and influence of him as he’s turned around by an invisible force, brought to kneel at the feet of that smile both beautiful and cruel, and burned to nothing but a pile ash from a single touch.

She tightens her fists until her palms bleed to remind herself she’s still alive.

“Nadya—no—what are you doing?”

Adrian forces her hands up and open with concern woven deep into his brow. He wants an answer — Nadya wishes she could give him one, really.

He goes to bite his thumb and heal her with a drop of blood but a hand stops him.

“No,” says Kamilah softly; she coaxes Nadya to the edge of her seat and looks over the wounds herself, “you’ve lost too much blood already. We’ll need you strong for what lies ahead.”

 _What lies ahead._ Words that echo in ricochet around her empty skull while Nadya sits complacent and allows Kamilah to do the work for her.

“Where are we supposed to go?”

With the rumble of city traffic outside the van’s dented walls, Lily is hard to hear. She sounds so quiet; so confused. And no one has an answer which doesn’t exactly make it better.

“We’ll regroup in the Shadow Den,” Jax answers hesitantly, “we have to warn them all, anyway. When things get like this… it’s always the weakest that get picked off first. I have a responsibility to my people.”

“Which Gaius will have anticipated.” He glares at Kamilah for her pessimism… but she’s not wrong, is she.

“Then do you have any better ideas?”

“This is not a measure of _ideas,_ but one of survival. The only course left is to leave the city if we are to hope to fight another day.”

Cadence gives a rueful laugh, his head hitting the glass partition heavily. “Fight against _what,_ exactly? Or was I the only one who saw him consume the blood of a goddess and fly up into the air like a cheesy film?”

“He’s right,” though Adrian is reluctant to admit it, “the blood of the First Vampire restored him to full power and then some. He’s not just our Maker anymore.

“You can’t kill a god.”

His words settle over them all heavy; stifling. Suffocating in Nadya’s case. She rubs at her sternum and has to remind her body how breathing works. _In through the nose… out through the mouth…_

But every time she closes her eyes she sees him. Sees the pinkening of life return to his cheeks growing smooth and firm and youthful, each strand of dark hair sprouting from his head and falling around his face, framing the newfound clarity in his eyes.

His eyes; how they had changed. From that blue of a cloudless daytime sky to the now-familiar bright and predatory red — only they didn’t stop. Brighter and brighter and brighter until they were burning flames crackling hollow with the victory in his laughter.

And She had stood beside him all that time. Watched as one of their own as Gaius ascended to the vaulted Chamber ceiling and declared himself restored; reborn. Just as beautiful as before — as She had always been and would be.

 _“I understand, My Goddess,”_ Gaius had said, _“I feel you with me now.”_

Maybe he could see her, too. Nadya won’t rule out the possibility. But there’s a feeling itching at the back of her throat that he hadn’t.

That only Nadya herself _could._

“Yes, we can.” Nadya slips out of this memory easier than ever before.

“It’s been done before.”

She looks up to Kamilah with an unspoken question burning in her eyes. The vampiress hesitates at first; unsure if she’s supposed to take this seriously. After all — gods were rumors, even if the First Vampire was not. But if that’s the case then there’s a _rumor_ who just sent the entire island of Manhattan into a reeling panic with a giant sinkhole and the exposed ruins of a throne room he intends to restore to its former glory. There’s a _rumor_ that’s after them, that wants them hunted down; wants them killed.

Kamilah knows this — Nadya watches her struggle to try and bear the brunt of the weight it brings.

“What happened was… nearly a thousand years before my time, Nadya. I wouldn’t know where to begin. The truth of what happened to the First was the one secret Gaius would never tell.”

“He doesn’t have to.” Because there has to be a _reason_ Nadya sees Her; there _has to be._ “He can’t keep secrets from me.”

“Do you even think it possible?”

“Maybe — I… I dunno. But he did this; he forced me into these memories before my time. And I’m gonna make him regret it.” It isn’t like she’s never delved into the depths of Gaius’ memories before. “I doesn’t know how, or where to look, or what to look _for,_ but if Jameson can force a memory out of me… who says I can’t do it to myself? It’s _my_ ability, after all.” _And I should know how to use it,_ though that part she leaves out to avoid shaking what little confidence she has.

Understanding comes easy to Kamilah — it’s the acceptance that she struggles with, that has her face buried in her hands. Thankfully they don’t have to explain it — the rest catch on quickly enough.

So this is the thing they’re doing then. “And think about it — we know a psychic of our own, don’t we? Isadora; we could hide out in New Orleans — I’m sure they’d help us — and Isadora could try the same thing Jameson did, and —”

 _And_ she falls flat as Adrian shakes his head beside her. “She may be a good psychic, but Jameson’s abilities are more than innate — there’s a reason the Council kept him close at hand. He’s had access to every school of psychic study for hundreds of years.”

“So we find someone else. Someone who has hundreds of years on _him.” If such a person exists._

Nadya has no idea what exactly she said but Kamilah and Adrian go still as stone; meeting eyes over a tool box filled hastily that rattles when the van hits a pothole or sewer cover. But she knows one thing; she knows that look.

“Serafine?”

“Serafine.”

“But I’ve only barely kept up with her,” Adrian hesitates almost sheepishly, “have you?”

Kamilah frowns. “Not as well as I should have. Her roots to Paris are strong, though. That would be a place to start.”

“Is it safe there?”

“Is it safe _here?”_

She has a point. Adrian concedes and digs in his jacket pocket for his phone. He pulls it free and grimaces at the cracked screen, but it blinks to life under his touch and that’s all that matters.

“Who is Serafine?” Nadya asks; since it’s obvious neither of the two realize they should explain.

Adrian doesn’t look up from his message, so he misses the _look_ Kamilah gives him before she answers.

“Serafine is an old friend. And, more importantly, she’s arguably the most powerful psychic vampire I’ve ever met.”

“Even more powerful than Jameson?”

“I would not doubt it.”

The back of the van darkens once more as Adrian pockets his phone with a curt nod to Kamilah. They’ve done all they can on that front.

If only their problems were over.

“And how are we supposed to get to _Paris,”_ Jax argues; because he’s the only one who can, “when we don’t even know yet if we’ve got a place to hide out?”

“There are a couple of old smuggling outposts we could hole up in,” suggests Maricruz, “places we could wait him out, see where things end up and make a plan from there.”

Jax knocks their knees to get her attention. He doesn’t look nearly as confident about that idea. “Any of the trade routes we let dry up are known by the Baron’s people. It’s an easy trap.”

“Well I don’t see you coming up with anything better.”

Adrian pinches the bridge of his nose. “Gaius isn’t the kind of man you can _wait out._ He’s a skilled tactician, and his patience has starved out armies far larger than us. If we can make it over the East River and to the airport we _may_ have a chance.”

 _“Shit,_ we’re going the wrong way.” Jax grumbles under his breath. He raps his knuckles against the glass and slides it open to relay the change of plan to Arnold. They jerk to a stop — his frustrated curses lost in the squeal of old brakes, and everyone braces to keep from falling over while he turns sharply and starts heading back in the other direction.

Back towards Central Park… and Gaius. Whose voice still echoes in their minds; in the minds of every vampire in the city — and Nadya too. Louder and louder the closer they get.

_“I understand this change may not come easily to some of you. In time, however, I hope that you will come to realize this was inevitable. That this was the plan from he beginning — that I brought our kind here for the start of a new era; a new kingdom in salvation._

_“What I ask_ you _to understand, my subjects, is simple. There is no stopping this; stopping_ me. _Those who choose to defy me do so at their own peril. Those who seek out the dissenters; who bring them to me so that we may be swift in our justice, will be rewarded._

_“And to the ones who bring me the ashes of traitors Kamilah Sayeed, Adrian Raines, Jax Matsuo, and their ilk… their reward will be as boundless as my gratitude.”_

* * *

When they reach the airstrip Nadya braces herself against the biting wind as she and the others exit the van. There’s a storm on the tip of her tongue; she silently prays they’re leaving it behind. Adrian’s plane is already preparing for takeoff; the engine roars in her ears so loud she struggles to hear even her own thoughts.

She buries herself against Kamilah’s side out of habit — knowing there won’t be any warmth to be found but right now safety is the next best thing. And arguments aside, Nadya knows she will always be safe with Kamilah.

The woman’s arm comes around her shoulders and squeezes — tighter than she’d like. But when she looks up to mention it Kamilah’s focus isn’t with the rest of them at the base of the plane’s metal steps, but far out around them.

“We aren’t alone.”

As if on cue the first flash of lightning streaks across the night sky. Too bright, too close; illuminating the dark tarmac so Nadya’s poor human eyes can watch the fleet of black vans barreling towards them at a dangerous speed.

Adrian curses loudly. “We need to board, now!”

Jax reaches for his katana with a growl. “Yeah… about that.”

They risk a lot looking away from the incoming vehicles — and for good reason. The yellowing glow of the plane interior now eclipsed by a shadow standing at the top of the steps. But before Nadya can try to see through the darkness obscuring their face the shadow speaks with an all-too-familiar distaste.

“How _boring!”_ sneers Priya, “You could’ve at least made it a teensy bit harder to figure out what you were planning, Adrian. It’s like you _wanted_ to get caught or something!”

She descends with the same flippant arrogance she does everything else; a sway in her hips and as Nadya’s eyes adjust to the lack of light she can see the vicious glint of pride in Priya’s ruby eyes.

By the time she reaches the bottom step that’s their window of opportunity gone. The cars spread out around them in a wide arc; brakes barely squealing rubber against asphalt before the doors slide aside and actual, literal goons cluster out in groups of twos and threes.

One walks around the van closest to Nadya and opens the passenger door. The way the Baron hops down would be funny if it didn’t hammer home the fact that they had made it all this way only to end up trapped.

He puffs on his cigar with a smarmy grin. No longer the purpling creature of fear he had been in the Chamber. “I ain’t complainin’ about easy targets. Just think of how pleased Our King will be that we didn’t have to drag this shit out.”

Adrian and Kamilah flank either end of their small group, face to face with their former Council members. Somehow Nadya finds herself sequestered in the middle with Lily, Maricruz, and Cadence. Jax’s blade catches on light from the plane window dangerously.

Kamilah snarls and the sight makes the Baron’s men take a step back — rightfully afraid. “I’m surprised you stopped yourself from licking Gaius’ boots long enough to make it here, Cecil.”

“Just because you were coward enough to throw away your allegiance doesn’t mean I was about to.”

“No,” her upper lip curls, “you were just coward enough to grovel; to turn your back on your people.”

He spreads his arms (not so very) wide. “From where I’m standin’ _my people_ ain’t so bad off!”

Priya rolls her eyes; throws her ponytail tousled from the breeze over her shoulder flippantly. “Jesus Christ — will you stop being such a villain cliché?!” She can look as outraged as she wants when Adrian laughs at her — she doesn’t make a move to shut him up and that’s a telling thing.

“You’re one to talk.”

“Oh save the altruistic bullshit for someone who cares. Choosing between dying like the rest of you worms, or offering up a few fat tears and some dumb apologies for the chance to both live _and_ be a princess? It wasn’t exactly a toughie.”

Adrian hesitates, then eases himself out of his defensive stance. “You really think he’ll forgive you,” Priya almost looks maniacal with glee until he uses it as an opportunity to look down on her — both in the literal and metaphorical senses — then her hatred can’t burn bright enough, “both of you? Or are you so desperate for power that you’re content to be blind to the truth?”

“And what _truth_ would that be, exactly?”

“That Gaius isn’t a forgiving man.”

“He’s not a man at all!” The Baron barks. “He’s a King, hell — he’s a God! And unlike you damn fools I don’t got any plans on ending up like Castellanos any time soon.”

Even through her rage Kamilah keeps her voice level.

“Perhaps not soon… but you will eventually. If he would not forgive his Queen—” she throws a look at her back to Priya, “—then what chance is there for you?”

“Or maybe _bitter old hag_ is just out of season.”

“His patience will outlive your greed. You’ll see for yourself when the time comes.”

Lower lip jutted out in a glossy pout, Priya’s sigh is as heavy as it is sarcastic. “Maybe…” she laments; before her features twist into a feline grin, _“but you won’t.”_

She lunges. Too fast for Nadya to see but not fast enough — not for someone with a century on her like Adrian does. He restrains her outstretched claws with both hands and for a moment it seems almost too easy — laughably so. 

Only Priya’s the one laughing. She shouldn’t be the one laughing.

“Oh poor baby,” she croons with a razor-sharp tongue, “you don’t look so good!”

The awful part is that she’s right. Kamilah had told Adrian not to strain himself by giving Nadya his blood and for good reason — but it wasn’t enough. He should be able to hold someone like Priya back with one arm tied behind his back but already he’s straining against her. Giving in little by little.

“Adrian!” But what the Baron’s men don’t have on Kamilah in age they do in numbers — two hulking men each grabbing her arms to hold her back.

The Baron spits out the butt of his cigar. “Stake ‘em all, and sweep up the ashes! His Majesty wants proof and he’ll get it.” 

Beady red eyes hone in on Nadya in the middle of her friends. “Leave the little human to me.”

Then all hell breaks loose.

Jax is a red leather blur. He thrusts the tip of his sword — an unnatural movement outside of his skill set but it works — it forces Priya back and away from Adrian. It takes Kamilah less than a moment to regain her balance; the woman plants herself on steady ground and hurls her attackers in opposite directions.

The _bang_ of engine backfire makes Nadya flinch violently. She opens her eyes just in time to watch as Arnold, leaning halfway out of his open window, guns it in reverse and mows over three of their attackers before they can even blink.

Jax plants himself in front of a stumbling Adrian as defense, ready for a second go. Priya advances the smallest step but stops; she looks down to the sight of red seeping through the fabric at her waist. The wound heals in no time — but her dress isn’t so lucky.

“This is _couture you sewer-stained dickbag!”_ She howls, then too quickly her despair turns into vengeance turns into her lunging in for his throat and the kill.

The bulk of the Baron’s men advance towards Kamilah but their hesitancy is impossible to miss. Wary eyes catching sight of one another around her and wonder, probably for the first time in their miserable henchmen-lives, whether or not they’ve chosen the side that will keep them alive.

Even if one of them might consider changing their minds, though, they don’t have the blessing of second chances. Kamilah gives a sharp whip of her arms outward and a pair of very long, very sharp-looking daggers slide out from the sleeves of her suit jacket.

“The fuck’re you standin’ around for,” their boss barks gruffly; and he’s mistaken if he thinks anyone misses the tiniest break in his voice, “get on with it or I’ll kill ya myself!”

In a blur of black suits and white fangs they descend. They seal their own fates. Far more graceful than humans ever could hope to be but Kamilah makes them look like they’re fighting her with cinderblocks for limbs. She parries every fist and foot. Twists the blades in her hands like liquid — but liquid can’t slice a man’s head off.

Kamilah can.

Kamilah _does._

There’s no doubt in Nadya’s mind how this is going to end but hell if she’s leaving the woman now. Even when she feels Lily and Cadence trying to pull her away. When she hears Maricruz’s voice thick with uncertainty demanding of her “we need to get to the plane — don’t waste the opening they’re giving us.” She stands rooted to the spot like Kamilah’s very life depends on her watchful eye.

Turns out — it does.

 _“Kamilahbehindyou!”_ But her cry is rapid and choked and more of a scream than a warning and Nadya knows she’s not fast enough to run at the fallen thug trying to steady the grip on his stake in shaking hands blinking through blood and ashes sticky in his eyes but that doesn’t mean she won’t try—

She tells herself not to think about where it would have pierced. Knows in her rational mind that Kamilah’s older, faster, stronger and she would have found a way to evade the sharp wooden spike anyway but thank god she doesn’t have to take that risk; that chance.

Cadence’s extended fangs tear through his bottom lip; teeth clenched tight with the effort it takes to pry the stake trying to make a cozy home just underneath his ribs.

He pries it free with a mangled, painful noise. Presses his free palm uselessly over the still-gaping wound and quickly returns the wooden weapon to its owner in a cloud of ash.

Nadya claps her hands over her mouth. She can taste the salt of her tears on the seam of her closed lips. This time when Lily starts pulling her back she’s simply too weak to resist.

One more dead only changes the odds. They still keep coming, several more now with stakes of their own, so Kamilah has no time to thank him just as Cadence has no time to demand it of her.

 _It’s the least she could do,_ Nadya thinks.

That’s when she notices the red-faced Baron; much closer than before and with a premature greed curled on his greasy upper lip.

But he was too cautious; too cowardly. Took his sweet time and missed his chance and really Nadya shouldn’t be thinking about the things that _could_ have been done to kidnap her better — it doesn’t stop her. Nor does it stop Kamilah. She slices the last goon’s head off clean, takes one look around, and places herself firmly between the Baron and his failed prize. She’s an imposing sight, even from where Nadya can only see the set of the woman’s shoulders, that makes the mobster take a step back.

His attempted recovery is feeble at best.

“Maybe His Highness isn’t as unreasonable as you think! You’d be a fool not to consider what he can offer!”

Kamilah twirls one of her blades dripping with blood. “The only _fool_ here is you. With nothing to offer that he cannot take by force — Gaius knows this, and worse still knows you are blind to it.”

“After all Kamilah — he always favored you best!” Yet he keeps trying even if it’s in vain; a coward’s act. He steps back — she steps forward; a dance that grows deadlier every time the frightened man opens his mouth. “Surely out of all of us he would forgive _you._ Hell—he’d welcome you back at his side! The Bloodqueen back on her throne!”

“Difficult though the concept may be to the likes of you, Cecil, my loyalties are not so easily bought.”

“So you’d back a losing team?! Give up two thousand years of reign for—for what —” jabbing an angry swollen finger behind her to Nadya, “— a filthy human?! And one’a the uglier ones at that!”

“Who you callin’ _ugly, Ugly?!”_ Lily jeers unrepentant. And honestly… is she wrong?

Kamilah turns her head in profile; the curtain of her hair keeping her expression just out of Nadya’s sight. But she doesn’t need to see the woman’s eyes to know who they’re resting on. She’s sure for Kamilah it’s quite the same.

“I would rather know love freely tonight and die tomorrow than spend another thousand years searching in vain.”

_Searching for her._

It’s the kind of not-quite confession that ends with a passionate kiss and a _happily ever after._ Even still it’s enough to catch Nadya’s breath right in the middle of her throat. To make her feel like she’s never been so happy to find herself unable to breathe.

_So why does it feel like a goodbye?_

A sense of unease raises the hairs on the back of her neck. Nadya tears her eyes away for just a moment — just long enough to see Jax and Adrian come up at their backs. She and Adrian lock eyes and she watches the four deep gashes in his cheek struggle to knit themselves closed. He needs to feed soon; she doesn’t want to think about what might happen if he doesn’t.

_All they have to do is make it to the plane…_

But Jax still keeps his blade gripped tight and at the ready. Priya isn’t done for yet. In fact like this, with her perfect hair in disarray and the tattered parts of he dress exposing fresh, newly-healed skin, she’s almost the exact opposite. Nadya had thought she was the youngest member on the Council before Jax, but now she’s not so sure. How else could the woman have held her own against the pair of them and only look eager for more?

Priya and the Baron have always been her least favorite people in the world but there’s no denying that right now, even as Kamilah holds her ground, the predatory way the pair encircle them is dangerous. 

Dangerous because it happened in the first place. Dangerous because if they can barely stand against these two, what hopes do they have of standing up to the Trinity together, or Gaius on his own?

Priya flips the mess of her hair out of her eyes in annoyance. “This isn’t nearly as fun as I thought it’d be.”

“Sorry to burst your bubble.” Jax scoffs in reply. But his voice is strained; weaker. He’s been pulling the brunt of the weight in their fight with Priya and it’s taking its toll.

Suddenly the Baron is illuminated from behind, casting a shadow stretching outward probably as tall as the man wishes he really was. One of the men in his vans flashes the brights three times quickly. Some sort of signal that they need to speed things up.

And not that Nadya of all people has a right to judge Jax for inappropriate reactions to terrifying situations, but the little laugh she hears behind her is kind of _definitely_ uncalled for.

The engine revs.

Lily laces their fingers together in a knot; risks a lot to do nothing but make things even more confusing when she whispers right at the edge of human hearing. _“Hold on tight Nadi’, okay?”_

“What?”

“Just do it.”

The Baron’s shadow stretches longer and longer. Eclipsing what Nadya squints to see until the man himself is nothing but a black dot on a white canvas.

_Oh._

“Playtime’s over.” He turns a stake, liberated from one of his fallen no doubt, in his wide grasp.

Priya more than agrees. “Enough of this shit; we’re wasting moonlight and I for one don’t plan on mis—”

By the time the former Council vampires realize what’s happening it is most definitely too late.

_“NOW!”_

Jax’s voice bellows around her skull all the way down to when it hits the pavement. It hurts — _holy crap it hurts_ — but not as much as it must hurt to be Priya and the Baron right now. Even vampires must have a hard time recovering from being plowed into by four thousand pounds of metal.

The driver slams on the brakes and the vehicle halts with an ear-splitting _screech._ She’d cover them and save herself the grief but Lily’s still trying to make a finger-woven basket and honestly vampire-speed always leaves Nadya reeling anyway. Probably for the best that she doesn’t try to get up on her own.

When everyone is standing — more or less intact — they look to see the driver side window ease down with the smooth glide of automatic buttons. Arnold leans his head out and while at first Nadya will admit she found the man a little frosty, right now she could give him the biggest kiss in the world.

“Upgraded, huh?” calls out Maricruz with a tiny measure of amusement. He pats the sleek side and jerks a thumb into the dark, no doubt where the lumps she might possibly not be seeing start to stir.

“You ain’t got a lot of time. Get!”

Admittedly he has a point. Though being reminded of it brings the sense of urgency back down on them like… well like a four thousand-pound van.

They don’t waste any more time and make a run for it. They can recover on the flight; Nadya knows where to find the blood bags at the back of the jet and hey—positive note—no one had an emotional breakdown. So Nadya, fool that she is, takes the metal stairs two at a time and dares to think they’ve survived this intact.

Until she looks behind her and Kamilah isn’t one step behind. A tension eases out of the woman’s shoulders long and slow. Something like relief.

“Adrian.”

He stops in the rounded doorway to look back The moment he sees her he knows something Nadya doesn’t about that movement. Something familiar only to the hundreds of years before she ever knew them.

“Keep her safe.”

Adrian nods. When he reaches out and takes Nadya’s wrist in his hand the grip is a little too tight and a little too telling. And if either one of them think she’s going to let it happen — that she’ll just stand by and let Kamilah choose to stay behind in some terribly noble deed — then they don’t know Nadya at all.

“We’re not leaving you behind.” It isn’t the conviction with which she says it that catches her off guard, but that Nadya couldn’t see any other version of reality in which she says differently.

It’s more a sigh of resignation than a reply; “Someone has to stay behind.”

“Bull.”

“Someone has to be there for the ones who would not join Gaius so easily. And someone must give the ones unable to choose a reason to fight.”

“And that someone has to be _you?”_ Not that Nadya doesn’t disagree; someone should. Someone else — someone _not Kamilah._

Caught in the middle of the stairs and of all this, Maricruz and Jax exchange uncomfortable glances.

But she’s adamant. “I know Gaius better than anyone, and in this case it may just be an advantage. I can predict his actions and mitigate the damage. We cannot simply flee the continent, abandon the city and those under our care, and expect them to remain blindly loyal to us upon our return. That’s the kind of thing he would do.” The look she gives Nadya is endearing — Nadya hates her for it.

“I would not leave Gerard here unprotected. Or any of the humans under our care.”

 _Stop making sense, stop being so noble._ “There’s got to be another way.”

“I think we both know that’s not the case here.” She goes to reach out her hand but hesitates at the sight of smeared blood. Nadya couldn’t care less about that — she gently pushes her way passed the others and back below; back to her. And takes her hand bloodstains and all.

“I refuse to tuck tail and run; to let that monster undo a century’s worth of progress. I refuse to let him take the city from me. And I refuse to let him take _this_ from me, too.”

 _This,_ she says, and Nadya understands so well. Not that it stops the hurt.

“But what if he takes _you_ from _me?”_

Kamilah pulls her close and without hesitation. A telling thing — and not in a good way. Nadya takes the moments left; soaks them up all she can like a sad pink sponge of tears and memories. She _has_ to learn how to control these stupid powers now. Because she needs to relive this moment as many times as she can.

Lips rest cool on Nadya’s forehead; help calm a heated bubble of anxiety rising way too fast in her chest. Kamilah’s kiss may not stop it — but she keeps it at bay so this—them—isn’t wasted time.

“I’m right here,” the vampire breathes into Nadya’s skin, and its almost enough to have her come undone, “remember that, Nadya. _I’m right here. I’ve got you.”_

_But you won’t. You’ll be an ocean away where I can’t keep you safe._

_Let me keep you safe for now. You can return the favor later._

Though unspoken, that _later_ is a promise both of them know.

“Goddammit.”

Maricruz takes one step back down. Keeps her back turned just long enough to hide the way her lower lip wobbles when Lily calls behind her in a soft whisper; “You’re going the wrong way.”

Rather than respond, she backhands Jax in the chest familiar, habitual; affectionate. “You take care of my girl Matsuo.”

“If anyone should stay it’s me. They’re my people.”

“Yeah well,” Maricruz spins dangerously on the heel of her boot; grabs both rails to keep herself from falling or (more likely) running back up to take Lily into her arms and change her mind, “lucky for my dumb ass we’ve got a ticking clock and can’t fight for the honor. But I’ll skip the middle and tell you how it ends. I’m the one staying.”

“In what world would you beat me?”

“In the world of pain you’re looking at right now.” And she has a point — much to Jax’s chagrin. “In the world where you’re gonna come back fighting fit and finally give me some damn praise for keeping everyone together. They need one of us to lead ‘em… It’s about time I stepped up.”

The Leader of the (former) Clanless bites his tongue rather than answer. Looks away with his messed hair to cover his eyes but he’s accepted it. Not easily, and not without a great personal conflict judging by the way his shoulders shake and the metal railing starts caving in under his grasp.

But Jax has always done what’s best for his people. And right now it’s her.

When Maricruz does go forward it’s barely but a step. She and Lily meet in the middle — tender touches to ash-stained cheeks and kisses as deep and longing as they are sweet and loving.

The older vampire pulls away first; she has her own memories to commit.

“I know you wouldn’t leave Nadya’s side,” and because she knows Lily all too well she already has a finger against her lips before she can protest, “and I couldn’t ask you to. _Te amo mi lirio.”_

Fat tears threaten to ruin hours of work on her eyeliner but Lily couldn’t care less. “If you love me so much let me stay,” her eyes flicker over Maricruz’s shoulder to Nadya, and there’s no way she would hold it against her if Lily chose to stay — not with kisses like those, “let me help you. They’re my family, too.”

“Would if I could, baby.”

“You can.”

“And have the chick who’s supposed to save our asses die because she tripped over a shoelace without you to help her?” Maricruz looks over her shoulder with a grin, not apologizing in the least. Honestly Nadya can see her point. “No way. You go save the girl saving the world. And when you come home we can tick ‘reunion sex’ off your list.”

If she could Lily would be flushed beet red. “That’s not on my list.”

“Don’t lie to me. I’ve seen it.”

They laugh. They kiss again. Nadya feels a familiar thumb stroking her knuckles but they’ve officially worn themselves to the bone on time.

Off in the direction Arnold had let the business end of his new van throw Priya and the Baron, groaning comes faintly. Like a signal.

Nadya doesn’t let Maricruz pass her without a hug. _“I’ll keep her safe,”_ she whispers against that neon blue, and pulls back to a much more somber woman than she went in with.

“I’ll do the same. Deal?”

“Deal.”

Adrian, still in the threshold, looks down at Kamilah with his own kind of distress.

“Please be careful.”

“I should be saying that to you.” She calls back — but the affection isn’t lost on either of them.

He tries — and fails — to hide the pained look in his eye. _“Kamilah…”_

Because he may not have all of her years or some of her ideals, but they have always had Gaius in common. And that isn’t something to take lightly.

No one ever accused Kamilah Sayeed of ever taking anything _lightly._ She holds her chin just a little bit higher.

“I know. Give Serafine my affections.”

It’s enough to make him smile even through the pain of Priya’s wounds. Adrian nods, and Jax moves to help him inside before he collapses where he stands.

The last one left is Cadence; the towering figure lurking on the edges of their little family. He looks between the jet and the van with a furrowed brow and Nadya owes him so much for saving Kamilah’s life back there but she sees the conflict in his eyes and knows it well.

“Go.”

They lock eyes. It’s a permission he didn’t know he needed. “I want to stay, but I —”

“No ‘buts’ about it. You have your own family to save.”

 _Thank you,_ he says in a silent nod of his head.

Nadya is left more than a little confused when he offers Maricruz a hand to shake. She takes it gruff and formal, muttering something to him that Nadya’s human ears don’t quite catch. For a moment it seems he might try something similar with Kamilah, but thinks better of it and takes off into the darkness.

Nadya and Lily link their arms. Holding on and holding up.

At least they don’t have to do this alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From here on out... everything changes. Comments and critique would be fabulous. Thank you for reading!


	16. The Fugitives

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nadya and the others land in Paris in the hopes that Adrian's mysterious psychic friend will be able to help them in their search for a way to stop Gaius. But things are very different for vampires in Europe; from old customs that could prove dangerous to a secret Order that definitely is.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **chapter content warnings:** language

The storm follows them across the ocean. Nadya doesn’t mind; even if it does paint her first view of Paris in bleak and grey. How it looks outside matches how she feels inside — and somehow that helps in its own little way.  


Landing is slightly less bumpy than takeoff though that isn’t saying much. When Adrian’s voice comes over the speakers telling them to buckle in her stomach flips nervous. Her nervous habit would have Nadya lifting the shade on the window to watch their descent but it’s too close to dawn; too much of a risk — so she just picks a spot on the wall and stares.

Though why she had to pick the splattered blood, remnant of their actual pilot whose fate Priya left gruesome evidence of, she didn’t know.

The jet pulls deep into the hangar; keeps the shadows tied around them like a safety blanket as the cabin depressurizes and they disembark. Adrian is already on the ground addressing the airport crew in rapid French and its by pure chance that Nadya is the last one to step out.

Hands braced on either side of the doorway; looking down but not really seeing. Because the second she takes that first step she’s not in that strange in-between of an airplane anymore. She’s not somehow, in some small way, still tied to New York.

 _Not like refusing to move will get you back there though,_ which her rational brain says no matter how much Nadya doesn’t want to hear it. And it’s right.

The gold rim of Nadya’s charm bracelet dug grooves into her palm hours ago. She squeezes and keeps the imprint fresh the whole way down.

The routine will be a familiar one by the time all this is done. Shuffling from the hangar to an expensive-but-modest (and safety-tinted) vehicle. From the vehicle to wherever they’re staying — and Nadya hadn’t actually thought about that part but thankfully Adrian had. Then the brisk walk disguising a mad dash to the safety of indoors.

The storm here tastes different. Nadya can’t say _how,_ exactly, but it does.

And it’s abundantly clear when they step into the apartment that it wasn’t made to accommodate four (five, taking into account this Serafine woman) people but they’ll make do.

While the rest of them flick light switches and outlets, check out bathrooms and make sure blinds are drawn tight and secure, Adrian turns to a small kitchen. There’s a large manila envelope on the counter that he grabs like he was expecting it. Now that Nadya thinks about it — he probably was.

He beckons them to join him in the main room and confirms her suspicions. Starts pulling out handfuls of papers from within and spreading them out for all to see.

Passports, paperwork, little cards with a set of what look like emergency phone numbers handwritten neatly under the laminate. He hands each of them a different color of the same clunky flip-phone but the rest they have to sort out of the pile themselves.

Jax grabs for his passport; props it open with his fingers to stare at the photo in discontent.

“Do I want to know where you got this information?” He asks gruffly. Nadya glances at her own. She’d just assumed everything was taken from her personnel file.

Adrian shrugs it off, like privacy isn’t a real thing. “The Council always keeps —” and the need to change the tense throws him for a second, “— _has always kept_ this kind of information on hand in case of emergencies like this.”

“You had a plan for _‘Sociopath Regent Takes Over the City?’”_

“Funny. You know what I mean.” He starts plugging numbers from his regular phone into the burner. “Kamilah and I have been seeing the same woman for papers since… for as long as I can remember, actually. These aren’t forgeries, they’re the real thing. They’ll be your IDs and travel papers while we’re here and in case we need to leave town.

“Phones, please.”

One by one they lay their real phones out. And one by one he presses the heel of his palm into the fragile metal and glass until each one yields with a _crunch._

Lily doesn’t hide a little noise of distress; nor does she turn down the offer to tuck herself against Nadya’s side in consolation. Adrian offers her an apologetic look. “It’s for the best, Lily.”

She sighs as a reply. Adrian can’t do much else but take what he can get.

“Normally I wouldn’t call it necessary, but we can’t take any chances. Priya and the Baron have access to the same resources, finances, and investigative tools that Kamilah and I do. We’re lucky in that the papers are a favor from an old friend, but I have a feeling favors are going to be few and far between going forward.”

His words put them all on edge. Jax fiddles with the strap of his sword resting in his lap.

“You make it sound like we’re fugitives.”

For a moment it looks like Adrian plans on denying it; correcting him, maybe, with something a bit more eloquent or less dangerous.

But that would be downplaying the severity of the situation now… wouldn’t it?

“Until we know just how many from the clans went to Gaius’ side we may as well be. At the height of his power there wasn’t a city across the country that didn’t somehow wield his influence. Gaius kept his inner circle close but over the years Kamilah and I, along with Vega, Lester, and probably even some I don’t know by name, put all our effort into securing his kingdom.”

Nadya looks down to see Adrian’s fist clenched, shaking in his lap. If the coffee table weren’t between them she’d reach over and try to steady him. That darkness on his face is becoming uncomfortably familiar.

His eyes sweep over the two younger vampires; a fact he seems to have only just realized. “You’re all… so young.” And the look on his face is as exhausted as he was prior to feeding on the plane. Not a good sign.

“What does that have to do with anything?” asks Jax. Adrian’s jaded little _“ha”_ isn’t an answer but still speaks volumes.

“It makes you vulnerable. It makes all of us vulnerable.”

His eyebrow quirks up; a look between the lamenting older vampire and his katana that says _“let someone underestimate me like that, see what happens.”_ Not that he says it. 

As the youngest of them all, the worry in Lily’s voice is justified. “How so?”

“We probably should have gone over this earlier.”

“Gone over _what?”_

It’s slowly dawning on Nadya why Kamilah had been so bewildered by her invitation to Lily’s One-Year Turning party. At the time she had thought it was because of the fact they had kinda-sorta split just a few days before, even if she wrote the woman off as being a bit dramatic… which in hindsight wasn’t like Kamilah at all and should have tripped more than a few alarms in her head.

And, really, she only has herself to blame for being so surprised. She’s encountered this type of behavior before — she watched the proud and accomplished Kamilah bend her head to the Trinity, despite looking like she would have rather staked them instead.

Because things are different overseas; the culture here is nothing like in the States. Among those the oldest of their friends had spent her centuries with. It only made sense for her to hold on to old habits.

Here in Europe everything is based on the only thing that has ever mattered to a race of immortals. Age.

“Modern innovation hasn’t just made human lives easier, but ours as well. Blood bags, tinted glass — more and more vampires are living through their initial fifty years. That may not sound like much to you, but it was a cultural stigma that was just starting to phase out by the time I was Turned. Think about how long humans were expected to live back then, and in the hundreds of years before.

“The longer you’ve lived, the stronger you are. Smarter, faster. Able to outwit nature itself and the constant changing of civilization. The newly Turned were taught to admire that kind of survival instinct. Admiration became respect, which gave way to superiority. There was once a time when speaking improperly to a vampire a certain number of years over you was grounds for defanging.”

Lily’s hand flies to her mouth — either from shock or to protect herself, both are applicable. From the look on his face Jax can’t help himself from thinking about how many times his words would have gotten him outright staked.

“But much of this mentality came from centuries of being at war for their very lives,” Adrian continues, “The whole reason Gaius set his sights on the New World was to try and solidify a place of power outside of their enemies’ reach. For centuries now the vampires on this side of the world have been living in the shadows. Survival is as good as currency; a symbol of strength and power that demands an inherent respect. And in truth that desperation worries me. 

“The idea of an empire ruled by a Vampire King might sound pretty appealing to more than just people like Priya and the Baron. People who would do anything for freedom… even hunt us down.”

The look he gives Nadya is as forlorn as it is resigned. They didn’t flee to safety over here. Paris just happened to be where they needed to go. They’re still in just as much danger.

Maybe even more danger, now that she thinks about it. At least back home she knew the faces of the people who would hurt her friends. Here everyone is a stranger.

They really _are_ fugitives.

The feeling seeps out from him and to the rest of them, bleeds into their clothes and skin until the entire apartment is stifling with their new understanding. Nadya rubs at her throat with an open palm. It feels like a real, physical vice around her.

“And you’re sure we can trust this psychic chick of yours?” Lily asks to clarify.

Small mercies; like the relief Nadya feels seeing Adrian’s stalwart nod. In this he is certain, unlike everything else going on around them.

“Absolutely. I met her through Kamilah; the pair of them go way back. When you meet her you’ll understand. I knew immediately when we met I could trust her with my life.”

Lily and Nadya exchange mutual stifled giggles; it’s pretty damning that Adrian is too lost in whatever _memories_ he may have of this ally to notice.

When he comes back he’s still oblivious. “And for what it’s worth she was the person I asked for guidance when the time came to put a stop to Gaius’ plans. She was the one who made up my mind in the end.”

Which automatically gets her Jax’s seal of approval. “I like her already.”

* * *

Because her life is the way it is, it isn’t lost on Nadya how all of her friends are vampires and, with it being in the middle of the day and all, they don’t hide how tired they all are very well.

She’d been out like a light the entire flight. Excessive emotions, crying, and fright will do that to a poor human heart. But the same definitely couldn’t be said for Adrian who had flown them all here, and probably for the rest of them either.

“Still no word from Serafine?”

Adrian looks up from his phone and shakes his head mutely. That’s all she needed to hear. “Then get some sleep. Seriously, you look like you all need it.” There’s something else they need, too, but that Nadya can’t quite provide right now.

Hopefully in an apartment full of vampire-specific amenities like black-out curtains and a window that doesn’t face direct sunlight at any time of day anyway, blood bags are covered. Or, like, hot French donors or something.

Lily is the first to stop pretending; yawns wide and loud and with a stretch that almost hits Jax in the face. “You gonna be good, Nadi’?”

 _Good is relative,_ she thinks, and definitely doesn’t say it.

“Actually I was thinking about going out. We need clothes, I need food…” Because like most girls, Nadya finds the siren song of _French shopping trip_ to be almost impossible to resist.

Adrian doesn’t look entirely thrilled with the idea of her wandering the streets all by her lonesome, but it’s a point in her favor that they can’t go with because of the sunlight; “Which means all the other vampires will be asleep too.” He can’t argue with that.

Well he could. He doesn’t — which might be more for his benefit, she realizes as he clears his throat to contain a yawn of his own, than hers.

But every step she takes further away from the apartment complex feels heavier and heavier; until Nadya doesn’t think she could possibly go another step without breaking through the concrete and sinking into the center of the earth.

Back home the world is kind of ending. And here she is, squinting against the dreary sun (hey it’s sun, she’ll take it in any form) and snapping subtle pictures every couple of minutes and praying the older phone doesn’t ruin the quality.

Does she even have a right to enjoy herself anymore?

_Why shouldn’t she find joy in the fleeting things while she can?_

Nadya leans against a nearby building, hands flat on the freezing brickwork, and inhales deeply. Funny how a city smells like a city wherever you go. But it’s hard to breathe through the tightness in her chest.

That was Kamilah’s voice in her head. And, yes, most of her rational thoughts over the past couple of months have sounded like Kamilah (the best coping mechanism her subconscious had invented yet, really) but it’s different now isn’t it?

The voice has a point though.

And even with all of the storm clouds over her head there’s one little ray of light that shines through…

Kamilah would want her to enjoy this. For herself; for the both of them maybe. _Ha,_ she can even see in the shadow of her eyelids that little downturn of the woman’s lips, hear some kind of admonishment like, _“Paris is too beautiful of a city to spend your first time walking her streets in melancholy.”_

The cold may be bitter but even with slushed snow pushing up against the curbs the beauty of the city can’t be denied. When the wind is too much Nadya finds a store and ducks inside, pink-cheeked and shivering, and does exactly what she told Adrian she would do. 

Lily’s size she knows by heart — that’s no problem; if it has metal studs she buys it. Out of the corner of her eye she catches sight of a dazzling blue and finds it’s a neon-dyed leather cuff. She buys it because if Lily is feeling anything like she is… it’ll be a comfort. Adrian is a guess-timate; it helps that one of the fresh-faced shopping aids looks roughly as tall as him in the store. Funny how their fake and placating smiles change when they see the black card she’s willing to put down. Well it’s Adrian’s, but, you know.

Nothing on this fancy side of the store caters to Jax’s unique brand of ‘Action Movie Star Who Shops Solely at Resale Outlets’ but she tries her best.

But the most important purchase of Nadya’s day comes near the evening and on her way back to the apartment.

Let it be known that there is no sadness a crepe stuffed with strawberries and shoveled full of choco-hazelnut spread. The pain later will be so. freakin'. worth it.

Nadya’s glad to find when she returns that she’s not the only one who needed a little time to relax. Not that crossing the threshold doesn’t immediately remind her of the weight of their predicament but who can think about that when she’s met with smiles relieved, happy, and rested?

When Lily is finished crushing the wind out of her lungs she pulls back and immediately hones in on… something. She watches as the girl licks her thumb and drags it over the corner of Nadya’s mouth, eying the stain with suspicion. Refuses to look even the slightest bit ashamed when she starts getting ragged on for not having brought enough sugar for everyone. She just shrugs with her hands full of large bags of fancy French clothes.

Not-so-amazingly all is pretty much forgiven for that.

Freshly showered and dressed, the curtains pulled back to reveal the beginnings of the Parisian night; the change in overall morale is almost jarring for all of them.

Well… _almost._ Because apparently neither rest nor a new (and perfectly-fit, thank you very much) look will un-crinkle Adrian’s brow. It’s been well over twenty-four hours and still no word from Serafine — from the entire reason they’re _in_ Paris in the first place.

“What’s the plan if she never shows?” Jax asks finally; tired of the question flitting through their eyes but never through their lips. “We just fly back to New York?”

Unfortunately they all know that’s not exactly an option.

Adrian doesn’t have an answer, and it has him in knots. Jax turns away, back to his attempts to decipher the news anchor and her rapid French.

“It’s just not like Serafine at all,” he eventually confides; only in his lowest voice and when Nadya has signaled for Lily to turn up the news to the highest reasonable volume to drown them out, “I mean — it’s been a decade or so… I’d hoped to see her at Marcel’s, honestly. But that’s only in person. We’ve kept in close contact otherwise. She even wished me a good Dark Solstice…”

The more he says, the more Nadya’s starting to think there is to their connection. She places a gentle hand on top of his.

“How did you two meet? _When,_ too, I guess I should ask.”

His smile is slow to start… but there. “We met in New Orleans, actually. At the _Graveyard Shift.”_

Maybe it’s because she’s touching him, or maybe it’s because they both share memories of that quirky little bar. God; it feels like they were there years ago now… But she can feel the tickle of _him_ at the edges of her eyesight. Like her mind wants her to see… but — no. She can’t.

Maybe Adrian doesn’t want that. She can’t afford to lose someone else she loves because of this. But pulling back; pulling away? That would only prove she can’t ever care about her friends again.

Nadya keeps her hand on his because she needs to learn how to _not look._

So she distracts herself, the both of them; “You said Kamilah introduced you?”

“Yes; it was pure coincidence that they knew one another. Kamilah and I were… on a job.” _We were there because of Gaius._ He doesn’t have to say it. She knows.

“We had drinks,” he continues, “they caught up and told me stories of their days back here in Europe. Even here in France, in Paris. Big vampire community here back then, apparently. And there was just this _way_ she talked, Nadya. Like I could imagine I was there myself. There was still a lot of tension all around at the turn of the century, you see. People were still so disheartened. But when Serafine spoke about the world she brought light into it. All her centuries and she still saw beauty around her.”

That’s… a lot more than Nadya was expecting if she’s being honest. Not that she’s complaining! It’s so so nice to see Adrian talk like this. To see him look on something from his past with a happiness rather than that broiling anger.

“How come you’ve never mentioned her before?”

He blinks; taken aback. “How do you mean?”

“Well no offense,” _read: full offense intended,_ “but I’m a little hurt there’s someone out there I could have been teasing you about this entire time. Especially when you and Lil’ started conspiring together.” Not that Nadya’s not still grateful for their intervention.

He’s just accrued a _lot_ of payback is all.

It doesn’t get the smile she hoped for. It’s more like Senior Picture Day and your mother shoved you into a sweater vest.

“It’s not… Serafine and I aren’t like that.”

“You sure talk about her like you are.”

“What?” He has the audacity to actually look surprised. Well either that or he’s genuinely oblivious… which is seeming more and more like the truth. “I’ve barely said anything about her. Until now, obviously.”

She nods slowly. “Mmhm, yeah that’s true. But I think you and I both know it’s not what we say… but how we say it.”

After all; Adrian had seen her at the Ball. Had trusted Kamilah to keep her safe while he was away with Katherine and maybe he knew even before Nadya herself did. He’s remarkably astute for a complete dork.

He gives a long sigh and looks out the window instead of giving her an answer. If she were anyone else she might worry about having gone too far. Especially taking into account they’re still boss and assistant.

But she’s Nadya — so she doesn’t worry about that at all.

“Hey, I’m all for it. In fact I’m honestly relieved,” she catches how his facial muscles twitch; she has his attention, “since up until now I’ve been under the impression the only people you’ve been into were the bad guys.”

Adrian groans. “Please don’t remind me.” She doesn’t have to. Valdas did that enough on his own at _Persephone._

Even after Vega; they never talked about that. Seeing as she had just watched the old-as-dirt vampire chop off a man’s head, Nadya definitely wasn’t going to be the one to bring it up. Maybe (and especially after the events of their meeting) she should have. For Adrian’s sake.

“I know what you’re thinking.”

Nadya jumps. No use trying to hide it with that kind of reaction. Luckily Adrian shrugs it off. “I wish I had an answer; Kamilah certainly wants to know. That night when you were dancing with your friends she very clearly told me her thoughts on it. I only wish now I’d understood what she was trying to warn me about.”

“Trust me, I think we both underestimated them. And how much they were involved in everything that happened.”

“I think back to that night sometimes.”

“T-M-I.”

“No,” he sighs, “about… something he said. We got to talking about experiences, then wars, then soldiers… and now I can’t help but wonder if he knew who I was before I even introduced myself.”

“Because that’s what Gaius called you? His Soldier?”

Adrian tenses under her touch. Nadya goes to pull back, curses herself for opening her mouth in the first place… but the way he relaxes is a silent permission. So she stays. “Kamilah told me about… but I’ve been a little nervous to ask, truth be told.”

 _Ask how much you’ve seen of me,_ he means.

“Another time, maybe.” _Because I can’t push you away too._

His laugh is rueful; harsher than he should ever sound. “Fair enough. But you’re right — I was… that. But I wasn’t the first. Actually… I think that was Valdas; that _he_ was the first of Gaius’ soldiers. Maybe that’s why I was drawn to him.”

There’s an unspoken asterisk hanging on the edge of his words. _That’s what I tell myself,_ or something to that effect. Nadya is no stranger to the lies we tell ourselves to find the strength to keep moving, so she can hardly blame him.

“Does it matter…?”

“No,” and it’s clear he wants to wave the conversation off, “it doesn’t matter. Why try to find rationale in the irrational, right?”

Fair point.

But that doesn’t sit well with her. That he’s okay drawing comparisons between himself and that manipulative man — no matter what Valdas would say to the contrary. That being _alike_ to him is better than… than the other elephant in the room.

“Adrian?”

Nadya keeps her eyes trained pointedly on the table; on their hands. He can feel him look at her, feel the tension rippling under his skin.

“Hm, what is it?”

“We never talked about what happened.”

And for a second she’s hopeful. Sees the resolve flicker in his normally unwavering armor. He’s just as exhausted as she is; if not more. Doesn’t that mean maybe…

“Another time, maybe.”

Nadya knows he’s just giving her back the same response; and maybe she even deserves it. But that doesn’t mean she’s not left sitting there, watching him head into the living room to join the others, feeling like Adrian’s just slapped her in the face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading as always, and comments and critique is always welcomed!


	17. The Psychic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The group's patience is rewarded when Serafine finally arrives in Paris. But with her comes the reality that it's time to buckle down and do what they came here to do. Seeing as none of her previous experiences with psychics have been even remotely good, Nadya can't shake her doubts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **note:** from this chapter going forward, this series will contain _Adrian Raines x Serafine Dupont_ content/mentions
> 
> **content warnings:** language, alcohol, descriptions of dissociation/hallucinations, mention of PTSD (brief)

It’s the longest week of Nadya’s life. A week of unknowns and uncertainties that somehow both keep her exhausted and refuse to let her sleep for fear they would go ignored. Like there’s any chance of _that_ happening.  


The suckiest part is there’s no escaping the worry. She doesn’t stray too far from the block the apartment building is on for fear of losing her way, or worse — losing her life.But it’s not like their apartment was the most spacious thing in the world. Only Lily and Nadya are _used to_ living with each other. They aren’t used to living with two grown men.

They scour newspaper stands, memorize the channel numbers for every news station and use Adrian when translations are necessary. Digging almost obsessively for any information on New York and their loved ones. After all, you’d think a giant pitfall in the middle of Central Park would get even one 24-hour news cycle of international attention.

You’d think.

“The police have the entire park sectioned off,” Adrian summarizes; eyes flying over the newsprint of that day’s issue, “looks like they’re trying to write the event off as a scaled-down natural event. Hartfield’s sent out their geology department but I’m guessing that’s for the newspapers rather than to do actual good. Manhattan isn’t exactly known for it’s sprawling underground caverns.”

They stop looking at the papers after that. Or — they stop asking Adrian to expose himself to all of the things he feels he walked out on. He’s got enough on his plate.

And isn’t that an understatement. Yes; Adrian’s worries about being unable to reach Serafine are definitely everyone else’s problem too. But every time he seems to be getting a little too heated or intense Nadya reminds herself of their first night here and the talk they had. He may not admit it aloud but much of his worry for her is personal.

The side effect is as unanticipated as it is worrisome. Adrian’s a vibrant personality; never one to boast his success but always the center of attention because he’s just that interesting. So to see such an extroverted person retreat into themselves as harsh as he does has everyone on edge. He’s quieter at meals and outright avoids the rest of them in the apartment’s lone bedroom most afternoons.

When Nadya tries confronting him about it (she starts off subtle, but screw subtle they’re all in a bad way right now so if he’s going to be miserable he can at least be miserable with the rest of them) he at least does her the courtesy of not pretending to be oblivious about it.

“I’m just worried, that’s all,” he insists; pushy enough that it’s clear he’s trying to convince himself of it too, “about Serafine, and everyone back home too.”

“You think you’re the only one?”

“No, of course not. I —”

“Okay, so stop acting like it. We can’t do this without you.” _I can’t do this without you,_ but she doesn’t need to say it for Adrian to know. 

His excuses are always the same; so are the apologies that inevitably follow. Finally Nadya just forces herself to accept that if Adrian won’t confide in her there’s not much she can do about it. Not that acceptance keeps it from hurting her deeply.

The only consolation the universe decides to offer her is a few (worry-addled) days wandering around a snowy Paris at night with her best friend. It gets them out of the claustrophobic confines of the apartment though, so she’ll take it.

Still rosy-cheeked and shivering from their metro ride, Nadya fumbles to Lily’s delight far too long before she manages to get the key into the lock and her butt into the apartment.

“Karma is real you know,” though her huffs of discontent are made less malicious by the way her scarf muffles her words and makes her glasses fog up to the point of blindness, “and it comes after people who watch their friends suffer.”

Lily laughs in the face of karma. “Oh you _poor baby,_ all cold from your visit to the top of the Eiffel Tower. My heart goes out to you.”

“It should!”

“It does!”

“Good!”

They laugh in unison. When Nadya is finished shedding her many wintry layers she grabs for the takeout bag at her feet. “Looks like Jax is still out,” she comments, and doesn’t miss the indescribable look of continued confusion that gets thrown her way. Yeah, she didn’t understand it either at first, but turns out he’s never been out of the country before and likes walking the streets alone.

A woman’s rich and chiming laughter stops both of them in their tracks. Nadya knows full well it’s impossible for her key to have opened any other door in the building yet still she does a quick double-check to make sure they are indeed in the right apartment. Jax’s sword is where he left it on the coffee table, and Adrian’s suit is still hanging over the bedroom door; so it’s definitely their place.

And Adrian doesn’t laugh like that.

 _“Hold on,”_ comes Adrian’s voice from the kitchen, _“I think I heard the door.”_

The laughing woman’s voice is richly accented when she replies. _“If your hearing has gotten so terrible,_ mon chéri, _I’m surprised you’ve survived this long.”_

Lily wiggles her eyebrows suggestively before calling out; “If you need a minute or ten, we can circle the block!”

Nadya claps her hand over her mouth to stifle her snort, and the fact she can _hear_ Adrian’s rolling eyes when he talks doesn’t help in the least.

 _“Ha ha,_ very funny _Lily. Come on in — there’s someone here I want you to meet.”_

The woman sitting _very_ close to Adrian at the small kitchen table needs no introduction but Adrian gives one anyway. “Nadya, Lily; this is Serafine Dupont.” And she’s a startling beauty to be sure; hair falling in bushy and effortless curls around features that manage to look flawless even under the harsh yellow light overhead. But Nadya can’t look away from Adrian from the moment she sees him.

Adrian who is _smiling;_ really genuinely smiling, for the first time in a long time. She’d almost forgotten what it looked like, but the sight of it is like an old friend and gives her an immense relief. Not just for his sake either — because just maybe something is finally going right for them.

The girls are barely one foot through the doorway when Serafine descends upon them. Feather-light fingertips brushing through the wool of Nadya’s sweater with gentle kisses gifted to her cheeks. She smells of rose perfume and spring morning dew, and carries herself tall and proud in a way that is so familiar it makes Nadya’s heart ache.

Lily returns the kisses enthusiastically. “I’ve been wanting to do that ever since we got here,” she admits to Serafine’s delight.

“Believe me, the pleasure is all mine.” The woman smiles sweetly at the both of them before taking up her seat again. “Adrian’s been talking the both of you up for hours. I told him that I could not remember the last time he spoke so highly of anyone!”

“Well we _are_ admittedly awesome.”

“And modest, too, I see.”

Her oh-so-courteous vampire friends wait until Nadya’s settled in with her food unpacked to get down to business. There are only two chairs for the table so Lily joins her up on the counters; their legs dangling and colliding on lazy occasion.

“So, Serafine,” and there’s a depth to her warm brown eyes that Nadya recognizes; they may not have discussed it before but she has no trouble believing that Serafine is much older than her current companions, “no offense — but you’re a hard woman to track down.”

At least she seems genuinely apologetic. _“Ah, oui._ I’ve spent the better part of the evening giving Adrian my apologies but I should offer them to you as well.”

“She’s been in hiding.” Adrian comments, and with no small amount of sympathy.

Nadya and Lily exchange surprised looks. “Are you okay?”

Serafine nods with a hum. “I am alive, and that is more than can be said for those who fell victim to the Order.”

 _The Order._ Nadya’s heard that name before — though never with her own ears. She may not remember all of her visions but they’ve come up too frequently for her to fully forget. With that name comes the chill of fear and the weight of loss. Serafine radiates it and so much more.

“The Order of the Dawn, you mean.”

Which makes Serafine regard her with surprise. “You know of them?” she asks, and because she’s working really hard on this whole being-honest thing Nadya just shrugs in a noncommittal answer.

Lily raises her hand. “And for those of us who skipped Vampire History 1-0-1?”

“The Order of the Dawn is the oldest enemy to our kind. Legend says they have been around since the time of the First Vampire Herself, and with the amount of wealth and influence they have gathered the world over… I would believe it. They are the worst of humanity. Radicals who exist solely to exterminate us. By their teachings, from the moment we are Turned we cease to be people. They paint us as savages; animals controlled by our need for blood and nothing more.”

“Sounds a bit like —”

“Ferals?” Adrian nods grimly. “They’ve been used as a tactic for the Order’s indoctrination for decades. But they don’t see the difference between a Feral or the likes of you and I. To them it’s all the same.”

 _Indoctrination,_ he says. And judging by the pain that flashes across Serafine’s face when he isn’t looking it’s not a word chosen for melodrama. When she tries her hardest to recall what few memories she can that even so much as whisper _the Order_ in her ear, it’s not an unfounded fear the older vampires share.

However there’s one thing Nadya doesn’t fully understand.

“If they’re so powerful and connected, why haven’t you mentioned them before?” Frankly it would have been nice to know of yet another reason to look over her shoulder.

“Because I didn’t see any reason to scare you over something that you wouldn’t have to deal with. Or… so I’d hoped.”

Serafine offers Nadya a sympathetic smile; something a hair’s breadth from pitying. “Don’t think too little of him for it, _petit._ America has the luxury of letting the likes of the Order fade into history. They fought hard enough for the right to do so, after all.”

Her hand falls over Adrian’s with a feather-light touch; offering a look with it that Nadya only sees half of but that’s more than enough to know the feelings behind it. The tension melts from his shoulders in a steady wave.

“There was a secret war in the middle of the 19th century; the War of the Dawn. A decade-long campaign to wipe every vampire from the face of North America; and the Order’s last and bloodiest attempt at killing Gaius and damaging our entire species beyond repair. They all but abandoned Western Europe and poured every resource into the fight. Unfortunately we were forced to do the same… and because of it they very nearly succeeded.”

He’s had Lily’s interest since _‘secret war’_ but everything after is meant to frighten them. It succeeds — rightfully so.

It wouldn’t hurt for him to stop there but Adrian continues almost like he’s duty-bound to finish the story for the warning it is. “We won because we were connected to the human world in a symbiosis. Gaius spent years weaving his court into the very fabric of American history and it paid off when the time came. Politics, industry, big business — when we formed the Council we didn’t create these connections, we merely stepped in to fill the void our _coup_ left behind.”

She gets it now. “You have more power than the Order does.”

“And so they can’t touch us. Not without losing for a second—and final—time.”

For all of the terrible things Gaius is and will always be, he can play the long game well. Nearly every vision he showed up in left Nadya confused as to how such a terrible tyrant could inspire such loyalty. Now… it makes a little bit more sense.

Not that it makes him any less of a villain.

“But it is not _my_ enemies that bring you so far from home, Adrian.”

If Serafine was hoping to cut even the smallest hole in the tension between them, sucks to be her. She takes the defeat with grace though. “I relish this chance to reconnect… though I have a sense our night would be better spent with why you are here, in Paris with her dangers, at all.”

His laugh is as dry as it is fake. “Where to start…”

There’ve been enough psychic vampires probing around in Nadya’s head lately that she knows the look their new friend gives her right away. Before she can even open her mouth Nadya feels the itch of Serafine’s psychic influence right at the base of her skull.

“The beginning should suffice.”

* * *

While Nadya may not have picked up on much of the French language in their short time here, she has little trouble imagining the long string of words that roll off of Serafine’s tongue are the pretty woman’s equivalent of swearing like a sailor. Judging by the way Adrian raises his eyebrows and suddenly finds the bottom of his wine glass the most fascinating thing in the room… she should have bet money on it.

“You okay there?” Lily asks, and passes what’s left of the bottle wordlessly back to the table. As vampires, they may not be able to get drunk like humans could but Nadya’s coming to realize her favorite thing about the French is handling stressful conversations with an alcoholic buffer.

Serafine looks between the girls in a strange emotion possibly named _‘wild sadness,’_ which is valid honestly.

 _“Non,_ Lily, I am not. But I cannot fathom how minuscule my emotions must be compared to your own. And you, Nadya,” who tries her best not to cringe under the emotions that make her voice thick and accent thicker, “to have endured what you have, so young and in the prime of your life. I would not wish such a fate on my worst enemy.”

“Yeah well…” she has no idea what to say to that; so she drinks until something comes to mind, “I would. If only to show him what it feels like.”

Serafine gives a fitful nod. “But it doesn’t do any good to sit here and ruminate on the tragic things which have already passed. Whatever is in my power is yours.”

“Well that’s the thing — I wasn’t sure if it _was_ in your power.” She looks offended that Adrian would even think of doubting her. He doubles-back; tries again.

“You’re the strongest psychic Kamilah and I know, Serafine. But I’ll admit I don’t know much about the skill. Is it even possible to undo the damage that’s been done?”

Nadya doesn’t disagree that _damage_ is right but it still hurts to hear it. He glances at her quickly and utterly remorseful. “I mean —”

“I know what you meant. Let it go.”

Serafine shrugs. “Let me see what I’m working with first. Nadya, darling, if you would?” She gestures and Nadya slips from her stool without argument, is glad for the fact that Serafine stays seated only because she knows the woman would tower over her. She cups Nadya’s face in her cool palms; thumbs brushing over her cheekbones.

Isadora had touched at her mind subtle and with caution. By comparison Jameson had all but swung a hatchet at her brain; chipped away at her until he found what he needed and that was that. And Serafine, too, is different in her own way. But it’s more than the simple differences between individuals.

There’s a power in Serafine’s touch. Impossible for her to ignore. A compulsion of the will that drags her eyelids closed and brings her deep within and along for the ride.

Images, emotions, thoughts. Nadya sees them coming from a great distance but doesn’t have time to brace herself before they hit her like a truck. 

_Grasping for Lily’s hand on the plane—Kamilah’s lips on her forehead tears welling in her eyes emotion choking her throat_ —pleasedon’tmakemeleaveyou—I’mrighthereI’vegotyou— _fear and worry and the brief flicker of joy—Taylor’s inconsistent eyes Kathy’s rich violet hair—all those months of lying begging for the end in those moments just before succumbing to sleep and the horrible things that always_ inevitably _come…_

 _And then there’s Gaius. Gaius whispering in her ear feeling Nadya’s heart pounding in her chest Vega two steps behind_ don’tlethimcatchyou! _Gaius entering the dining room with silent fanfare — the glamour fading to reveal the rotting corpse beneath — his shoes_ taptaptap _echoing in the Chamber the blood of the First staining his teeth before he rises up up_ up _and into the oblivion of the night—_

Serafine tries to pull back her psychic reach — but something, certainly not Nadya, holds her down. Keeps her still and there and demands of her to watch. _As I have watched, as I have seen._

Nadya knows so very little but she knows without a shadow of a doubt the images that follow are memories, too. Serafine’s memories. Surprised to be pulled from some abyss, out of order.

 _The smell of spice and ocean sea-salt freshly sanded wood on beaches sand still warm with the sun’s heat sinking between her bare toes — electronica pounding through modern speakers club lights shining down on her skin slick with sweat her head thrown back in laughter — Adrian’s lips on her neck on her breasts lilted language on her tongue_ slow down darling we have a long day ahead of us _fingers intertwining skin burning where the barest sliver of sunlight catches on their shared bed—_

 _Paris bright and both new and old history not yet written in cobbled streets an empty void in the skyline where the Eiffel Tower will be and the smell of burning flesh and bone wafting up from deep within the earth tears and ash smeared over her skin_ —Youwillseejusticeatthehandsofyourenemies— _and a burning hatred that ignited the flame._

Nadya tastes something unfamiliar and metallic on the tip of her tongue. Blood, her mind tells her — though her body struggles to accept it as more than just another memory.

She opens her eyes just as the red slips from Serafine’s own gaze. Shame and confusion burn hot in her cheeks and she barely registers the combined cries of _“Nadya!”_ from both of her friends before she’s emptying the meager contents of her stomach in the kitchen sink.

Nadya reaches with a shaking hand to push her hair out of her face. Lily beats her to it; holds her through every shaking heaving breath without a word.

The two glasses of water she all but inhales help soothe the sting of the cut inside her cheek. Still, Nadya keeps the flat of her tongue against it out of habit. And though she’d like nothing more than to crawl into bed and sleep off the vertigo a nd nausea still churning in her belly Nadya knows she can’t. Sits back on the counter like a good little Bloodkeeper while Lily scrubs the sink before the smell can linger.

 _“Je suis tellement désolé,_ Nadya,” apologizes Serafine, to which Nadya only nods to reply. Words are a little bit beyond her right now if that’s alright with them. “I had no idea even a simple exchange would be so… violent.”

Which is a word for it. Though Nadya would almost prefer they find something more dramatic for the future.

Adrian looks between them in a silent war with himself. Torn between apologizing to Nadya and asking Serafine the inevitable. _What had she seen?_

“Do you truly wish to stay your current course?”

She appreciates Serafine asking; it’s a consideration she hasn’t gotten much of so far. Unfortunately it doesn’t change anything.

“You— _gh,”_ the three vampires wait patiently while she swallows and regains her words, “you saw what happened. You saw what Gaius became. This is the only way.”

Lily throws an arm around Nadya’s shoulders. “Unless you magically happen to have a God-killing stake you can pull outta your back end.”

Serafine’s laughter is more polite than amused. “Would it spare you further pain, I would. But alas. And I would not ask you to try again so soon. Too much has already been forced upon you.”

“So you’re saying I’m damaged beyond repair.”

 _“Non,_ I am not. Psychic intrusion is rarely so simple, and cannot be compared to the likes of physical injuries. Judging by what you have told me and the little I was able to see… most—if not all—of your previous encounters within the mind were done without consent?”

Nadya nods slowly; the heartbreak is plain on Serafine’s face. “Then it is of no surprise that you have put barriers in place; even unconsciously. It will take time to bring down those walls safely and without risking further harm to you both mentally and physically.”

“How much time?” asks Adrian.

“I could not say. Up until tonight I too thought the Bloodkeeper only a myth. Even if there were a clear path to recovery, that alone will undoubtedly bring complications.”

He looks down and away. But he doesn’t have to say it — and they don’t need to be psychic to know what he’s thinking.

 _They don’t_ have _time. The people they love don’t have time._

Nadya inhales shakily. “How big is the risk if we just wing it?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Humor me.”

And the distinct lack of humor in her voice makes all three vampires uncomfortable. If she could, Nadya would laugh. They aren’t the ones with anything to be worried about. Serafine glances at Adrian, almost like she hopes he’ll interrupt before the silence becomes a deliberate refusal to answer.

Frankly she’s getting really tired of people making decisions for her. “Adrian didn’t ask you, I did.” She snaps her fingers. “It’s my head and my risk.”

“Nadi’…”

She shoulders Lily away. “No, no _‘Nadi,’_ just tell me. If you dig back in for the memory we need right now, how big is the risk?”

There’s no doubt in Nadya’s already-fractured mind that Serafine won’t spare her from the truth. She’s been inside the woman’s head and that kind of knowledge is a dangerous thing. As dangerous as Serafine herself can be, has been, might become.

Maybe some part of her knows this too, because she finally stops holding back.

“Your body would not be able to cope. Your mind would be so focused on the task it would forget to send signals to the rest of your body. Your heart would forget how to beat and you would even forget how to breathe. You could die before I even came close to the answers you seek.”

“So we put me on a respirator or something.”

Adrian looks up at her sharply. “Stop. We’re not entertaining this; that’s not even an option.”

“Well neither is waiting however long it might take,” she snaps back, “they’re risking their lives for us back home — I think the least I can do is return the favor.”

“That’s not true and you know it.”

“I’m tired of everyone risking their lives for me! It’s not worth it!”

“Getting you out of New York was worth it!”

“Obviously not, since I’ve got too much _brain PTSD_ to be of any freakin’ use!” Nadya gestures wildly, arms spread. She’s got no idea where any of this is coming from but that doesn’t make it any less true; that doesn’t make it any less painful. “Every day we’re sitting here tiptoeing around what we need to do is another day Kamilah or Maricruz or Arnold or _anyone_ could be _killed.”_

 _How are they not getting this,_ she thinks, incredulous and bewildered and borderline _angry_ at them all. _How can they let others put themselves on the line and not ask the same of her?_ Because she’s fragile; because she’s _human?_

Nadya doesn’t realize she’s on her feet until the dizziness hits her. She doesn’t let it or Adrian’s desperate _“Nadya, wait, come back!”_ stop her from leaving them behind. It’s easier when she doesn’t think about what she’s doing. Just lets her feet carry the rest of her aches and pains and all out of the apartment and down to the frigid streets below.

She doesn’t know how far she has — or could have — walked in her half-conscious daze until a firm and supernatural grasp brings her back to the present.

“Whoa there — where the hell is your coat?” Jax’s frown only deepens as he watches her become aware of her surroundings. Even if she had the strength left to try and pull away, she isn’t sure he’d let her go.

“I… left it back at the apartment.” She means to look back over her shoulder but the thought of their disappointed faces, despite not being there, is too much. It keeps Nadya frozen (literally) in place, shivering under his hands.

“Uh-huh… well, let’s go get it.”

Nadya barely manages to dig her heels into the pavement. It’s just enough resistance for Jax to notice. “Don’t… don’t make me go back there.”

He raises an eyebrow silently, but thankfully doesn’t push it. “I’m not leaving you out here on your own though.”

“Probably for the best.”

After a long moment the man sighs; shouldering off his coat and letting it hang on her shoulders comically large and smothering. “Lead the way.”

* * *

Though the pair of them isn’t one often found, well ever, Jax must have understood and accepted the moment they began their shared walk that eventually she was going to unload on him. He takes it all with great grace and stride honestly; and only shows his disapproval in a look rather than an outright argument when she makes them stop for another chocolate-stuffed crepe. 

“Don’t I always miss out on all the fun…” he mutters, something Nadya probably wasn’t supposed to hear so she goes back to her sniffly mouthful of sweet pastry like he never said a word.

“What was it you saw that upset you so much?” And that she _was_ supposed to hear. No doubt about it.

It’s to Nadya’s surprise that Jax waits with an uncharacteristic patience for her to answer. Eventually there’s no avoiding it.

“It wasn’t what I saw that… it wasn’t a vision or anything.”

“Then what had you running out of there so fast?”

“How I acted.”

“Well yeah, that was pretty dumb.”

She pretends it’s an uneven bit of pavement that makes her trip and not, well!

“Uh, thanks… I think.”

Jax gives her a careless one-shoulder shrug in return. “What did you expect me to say? Because I’m not going to tell you that you weren’t in the wrong, Nadya. You know that’s not my style.”

 _Yeah, unfortunately._ “I just don’t think she gets how… how _crucial_ time is.”

“If you really believed we had such little time you wouldn’t be here right now stuffing your face.”

“Joke’s on you, I’m _always_ ready to stuff my face.”

He stops; Nadya gives herself three steps ahead before she accepts he won’t be joining her another step further. She turns back and, luckily, manages to hide most of her face with crepe. But Jax doesn’t spare her even the tiniest bit of sympathy. His frown is stern; almost harsh. It’s hard to see what’s in his eyes with the lights of the city glowing behind him but she can’t imagine it’s anything consoling.

“You really don’t get it, do you.”

It isn’t a question. Nadya doesn’t answer. “Alright, okay, I guess it’s gonna be up to me to do this. But I’m warning you,” pointing a stern finger her way, “you’d better listen, and listen good. Because I’ll only say this once.”

“Say _what,_ Jax?”

“None of this is about you.”

“I don’t think —”

But Jax cuts her off. “You’re right; you _don’t_ think. If you did then you wouldn’t have had me go behind Adrian’s and Kamilah’s backs. But that one’s on me — I had to agree to it. So that’s your one free pass. But skirting Lily and me and getting yourself kidnapped was what gave Gaius the lead on the Amulet in the first place.”

“I didn’t exactly _choose to give him the memory,_ Jax.” And it’s really hard to keep the _I can’t believe you right now_ from her offended voice but that doesn’t help things in the least.

“No, but you don’t let anybody forget it either. Have you ever considered that if you spent half as much time helping out as you did moping and crying things might be at least a little bit better?”

“Wow. Tell me how you really feel.”

“Oh I am,” he snorts a dry, humorless laugh, “because everyone else might want to spare your feelings but I don’t see any point in it by now. Not when there’s so much at risk. Do you honestly think for one second I want to be here, thousands of miles away from everything and everyone I’ve spent my entire life caring for? Do you think Lily wanted to leave Espinoza behind, or that Adrian wanted to leave his Clan without a leader? These are genuine questions, by the way. Because I really don’t know what reality you’re living in, but from the way it sounds the only one any of this _sucks for_ is _you.”_

Word after word comes at her each one like a blow to the face, to the gut; fighting skills Jax has honed but Nadya never knew she needed to prepare herself for that leave her bruised and just barely standing.

“I… no.”

 _“‘No?’_ No what?”

“No I… I know I’m not the only one hurting.”

“Damn right you aren’t. But just like all of us, Nadya, you have a part to play. Of course all of us — you included — would rather have stayed in New York; tried to fight. But standing here crying about it isn’t going to turn back time. All it does is make the sacrifices of those like Arnold, like Sayeed and Espinoza and countless others we’ll probably never meet meaningless. Is that what you want?”

“Of course not!”

“Then act like it! Take responsibility and realize everything we’re risking for you. You’re our friend, and a sweet girl and all, but sometimes you’re so self-involved it drives me insane! Newsflash — you’re not the only person hurting right now. But the rest of us can put that aside for the greater good. Now it’s your turn. You keep talking about how much it hurts, well take it from someone who has dealt with a _lot_ of pain in a short amount of time. There comes a time when you have to make all of that suffering _mean something._ Not just for yourself, but literally for the world.”

Nadya’s way passed the verge of tears but that doesn’t mean she’s not doing everything in her power to keep from falling into a blubbering pathetic mess. Jax is right; worse still, Jax knows he’s right, Nadya knows he’s right. If anything that only makes it hurt more.

“I—I’m… I’m sorry.”

In less than a stride Jax is standing in front of her. His hands on her upper arms this time less forceful, less confused. But kinder than his words and tone would allow for.

“Come on now…” he admonishes; softer but no less insistent, “I’m not saying this to make you cry. I suck at dealing with crying people, actually, so I’d really prefer it if you stopped.”

Which works about as well as politely asking Gaius to not go through with his crazy plan would, which isn’t a surprise to either of them. He sighs and pulls her forward into the world’s strangest hug but it works for them both. He doesn’t want to watch her cry. She doesn’t want him to see her break down against his shirt.

“I—” she hiccoughs, “—I didn’t aa-ask for any of this.”

“I know that. But neither did we. And crying about it doesn’t change what happened. We know what we’re giving up to be here — and… maybe I was a little harsh. Don’t think we don’t care about you or keeping you safe. But, hey—hey. But —” Jax gently pries her back and fixes her glasses where they’ve gone askew, “— that’s our job; to keep you safe. And yours is to figure out how we can stop Gaius.”

“I know. I…” _I don’t know what to say._ And maybe that means it’s best she not say anything at all.

“Remember —” he waits until she can compose herself enough to look at him without wet hiccups spasming in her lungs; and when she does he surprises her with a small smile, “— whatever it takes.”

 _Whatever it takes._ And isn’t that the kind of mentality that had landed them in all of this in the first place?

Though it was also the mentality that gave her the courage to save Adrian in the Bloody Cellars, to confront the Trinity and evade Vega for as long as she did.

It’s obvious Jax isn’t letting her go until she says it back, and out of the two he doesn’t feel the cold on his cheeks. He can wait her out.

“Whatever it takes.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you as always!


	18. The Side Effects

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> These things take time; a lesson Nadya is learning the hard way as she continues her psychic training. Guilty consciences are eased, an old flame gains new fire, and a night out on the town doesn't go as planned.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **content warnings:** language, hallucinations, dissociation, trouble discerning reality from imagination, blood, discussions of trauma

_Six weeks later…_   


“Perhaps we shall make this our last trip for the night, _ma chérie?”_

There’s a hint of chiding in Serafine’s voice but it lacks real heart. That much is obvious by her amused little smile when Nadya throws a look back to her. It certainly doesn’t help the woman’s case that during these last few excursions into her halls of psychic memory she’s pretty much been given free reign. Like a kid in a candy store.

“If you’re saying that because you’re worried about me tiring myself out — I actually feel really good this time. So maybe, like, one more after this?”

Her enthusiasm gets a little laugh in return. “We shall see. It wouldn’t do to overexert yourself too soon. Now — come back closer please. We won’t be wandering aimlessly this time.”

She falls back in step at Serafine’s side; eyes widening in surprise. “Then why are we here?” A completely innocent question that by all accounts should have had an equally innocent answer.

But there isn’t one single instance in history when a stretched out and tense silence meant anything good. Well… she supposes she’ll find out soon enough.

There’s no doubt in Nadya’s mind that the real Hall of Mirrors in the real Palace of Versailles — only a metro ride away from their apartment — is still breathtakingly beautiful. She doesn’t even doubt that a connected woman like Serafine herself could get them into the Palace after hours for a real, physical tour of the place. But there’s a unique beauty to seeing it in its prime. Everything still fresh and new and dedicated to the Sun King rather than those who came after his reign.

There must be a hundred candles above and around them. But they are, for the purposes of this memory, a source of light rather than heat. Even when Nadya stands on tip-toe and brushes the flat of her palm through a steady orange flame she doesn’t feel so much as a tickle.

Just another oddity to hammer home Serafine’s first lesson.

_You are not a participant in the world around you, here. You are merely a voyeur — there to observe and nothing more._

They reach the center of the long and glittering Hall. Serafine stops and gives her an expectant eye. “How are you feeling; has anything changed?”

“Nope — everything’s still crystal clear.” Even in her excitement Nadya knows the importance of these questions. This may look like a field trip on the outside but deep within it’s just another in a long string of exercises. And they’ve been working at them diligently; every night for over a month now.

Frankly it’s about time all her hard work started paying off.

Out of the corner of her eye Nadya sees a flicker in the normally steady light. The flames of half a dozen candles barely clinging to their candelabra’s moorings giving a little impromptu dance. _Just a small wind,_ she tells herself; and chooses to ignore the contradicting stillness of the window drapes.

“Is something supposed to happen?” _Is something happening already?_

Serafine nods in reply. “Up until tonight, our focus has been on the first step — the crossing of the bridge between minds and memories. But memories aren’t portraits frozen in time. By their very nature they are alive and in an endless cycle.

“The task we’re undertaking won’t be one you can find in an abandoned landscape, Nadya. When the time comes you must be ready to bear witness.” If only the apology in the vampire’s furrowed brow wasn’t more unsettling than it was reassuring… “And I regret to say not everything you take in will be beautiful.”

The candles waver around them again. Casting long shadows and dewdrops of golden light across every shining mirror. Bitter experience has Nadya almost certain she does _not_ want to look into one. Better to spare herself even a brief glimpse of any number of dark and horrific deeds.

That’s the thing about bad memories. They are far too easy to conjure up — no matter who they belong to.

“Perhaps we’re attempting this too soon.”

Concern catches in the woman’s normally carefree tone and drags Nadya’s attention back outward — makes her shake her head insistently.

“I’ve gotta do it sometime. We’re already here, so let’s try it.”

“Are you sure?”

“No pain, no gain.”

Whether the vampire believes her or not, she accepts it. The memory continues.

Sharp footsteps echo back in the direction they had come from. Serafine looks up with a strange resignation in her dark eyes; her normal soft-humored smile replaced with pursed lips turned down somber and stoic.

Nadya doesn’t have the chance to question her about it before Gaius waltzes through the open doors.

 _He’s not real — he’s not real—he’s not real._ She repeats the mantra until the thought is all-consuming but that doesn’t make it any easier to see him. He looks exactly the same after all. As does the familiar cherubic face that skips happily away at his heels.

_Marcel._

Every step Gaius takes is with purpose. His eyes are trained forward but from where she stands it’s like he’s looking _right at her_ and even though her brain is a broken record screeching _he’s not real he’s not real he’snotreal_ nothing can stop the noise she chokes out; the hasty one-two-three steps back she takes before he passes her right on by.

She breathes.

_You aren’t a participant in this world. You’re just a voyeur._

Marcel’s face lights up and he takes off in a dash, calling out “Serafine, Serafine!” gleeful and grinning. Nadya turns just in time to see him leap into her arms. She swings him around in a full circle before setting him down. They exchange familiar kisses on either cheek.

All at once the child’s face goes sour. The delight of reunion now gone and replaced by something much more important. Nadya knows this because she can feel the trepidation rolling around her insides in that now-familiar phantom way. A feeling that only comes with memory.

“Tell me it isn’t true, Serafine,” he practically whines; throws an arm out behind him to gesture vaguely in Gaius’ direction where he hangs back from the pair politely, “please tell me it isn’t true!”

The two older vampires lock eyes. Serafine wars with the guilt creasing her brow. Her King, as ever, able to compose himself utterly porcelain.

“You know full well I wished to tell him myself.” Her dress billows out as she takes to her knees.

Gaius shrugs; clasps his hands together behind his back. “It happened to come up; in my defense I thought you had already told him.”

Child’s hands cup Serafine’s cheeks. Marcel’s lower lip wobbles.

“Why won’t you come with us?”

She covers one of his hands with her own. “My work here is not yet done, _petit._ Not while the Holy Knights still lurk in the Sun King’s shadows. Surely you of all people can understand that.”

“But where we’re going… there won’t _be_ any Knights.”

“For your sake I would pray so.”

“Banner is coming; Kamilah too! I cannot bear the thought of leaving you behind!”

“And your love brings me unbounded joy, but —”

“How can you stay here Serafine,” he interrupts, “after everything they did to us? In the New World we can start a new life! One without having to worry about the Knights, or—or any of their silly human struggles.”

Serafine quirks an eyebrow up at Gaius. “I would dare say the struggles in a unfamiliar world would be far greater.”

The man inclines his head. “Steps have been taken to ensure we will be well-received.”

“How can you be certain?”

“Do you doubt me, _Mademoiselle Dupont?”_

 _There he is._ The Gaius that Nadya recognizes, who she struggled to try and find under his powdered face and frilled collar. But she knew he couldn’t resist showing his true self for long. All this decoration is just another glamour. He’s still a monster beneath.

Quickly Serafine bows her head; speaks a low _“Non,_ My King,” and is forced to wait until he silently accepts her apology to regard him again, “but I have seen the struggles of new nations before, as you have. What is to stop the Holy Knights from following you across the world? They have done so before; surely they would again.”

A shiver runs down Nadya’s spine as she watches Gaius’ eyes burn red. Dozens of flames reflected that give him an awe-ful power; something near godlike. Even though she knows firsthand he won’t see that kind of power for centuries to come it still leaves her frozen in fear.

The Vampire King smiles down at the pair cold; confident.

“I would hope they try. For then I will show them what happens to _their kind_ in my Shadow Kingdom.”

The world around her begins to blur at the edges much to Nadya’s relief. Pinpricks of flames growing brighter, whiter; until they swallow her and the three vampires whole. Until Gaius and Marcel are left in the past and that version of Serafine with them.

Then all she sees is the black void and flashes of nameless colors behind her closed eyes.

Nadya waits until the high-pitched ringing in her ears dies down; gives way to the sounds of the apartment and the strange life they’ve built within it. She knows from tragic experience that coming back to herself, to her own head and the present with it, so soon would only end in nausea and the occasional nosebleed. Funnily enough she’d rather avoid that this time around.

When Lily’s laughter from the other room is louder than the noises in her head, Nadya knows she’s in the clear.

It takes a few blinks for her eyes to adjust. She reaches blindly and feels a cool glass slide into her hand. Her thumb brushes over Adrian’s — he waits patiently until she has the strength to hold it on her own. Each gulp soothes the itching, burning rawness in her throat. A welcome relief.

“How do you feel?”

“Honestly? Kinda fuzzy.”

She regains full and clear sight just in time to catch the furrow in Adrian’s brow. _“‘Fuzzy,’”_ he repeats; and he’s two seconds from scribbling the word down on a notepad before she stops him.

“It’s okay. I’m okay.”

“But you just said —”

“Yeah, well…” Nadya turns her head to look across the table; to Serafine and her (rightfully, absolutely justified, totally warranted) guilty expression. “I wasn’t exactly expecting to hang out with Gaius tonight, so _fuzzy_ is better than the alternative.”

The woman grabs for her waiting glass of wine and sips. Tries—and fails—to be idle about it. At least she isn’t pretending like she didn’t throw Nadya for a loop.

“What the heck was that about?”

Serafine swallows after a moment. “It was not my intention to sneak the memory upon you, Nadya.”

“Could’ve fooled me.”

“You’ve been progressing so well, _ma chérie._ The decision was a spontaneous one; not to mention a success, do not forget.”

“Yeah, but…” Surely she gets why Nadya’s not the happiest camper! “Did it have to be _him?”_

“I was advised you work well under pressure and with little time to think.”

“By who?!”

She regrets it the second she asks. No, she _knows the answer_ the second she asks. It’s pretty obvious after all; possibly even more than since Nadya isn’t alone as she and Adrian whirl around in their chairs to look through the doorway into the living room.

Jax is just a _little too focused_ on his book to actually be reading it.

“Nadya —” Serafine drags her attention back with a hand over hers, lacking warmth but still just as soft; she still tries her best to keep that frown front and center, “— you did remarkably. Far better than I could have hoped. Ask yourself; do you feel any of your usual aches or side effects?”

Under the pair’s scrutiny Nadya _does_ go through her mental checklist. However reluctantly. The ringing is all but gone and whatever stomachache she’s feeling is probably because she hasn’t eaten — for fear of the nausea she doesn’t feel either. Every physical followup she’s experienced since they began the painstaking process of dismantling her ‘psychic walls’ either isn’t there or is so faint it’s easily attributed to being human.

Her defeated sigh is met with smiles from both Serafine and Adrian — rude of them but… still. “No,” she reluctantly admits, “but that kind of pain usually only happened when the memories were being pushed _at me,_ you know? It was all chaos and noise and crowds and stuff I couldn’t understand. But… that doesn’t make what you did _okay.”_ Since Nadya really doesn’t know which was worse; the pain of being practically assaulted with vampire memories or the stress of having to even _look_ at Gaius’ dumb face.

At least she gives Nadya that. “I apologize for my deception. But this is fantastic news. It means we can begin pushing your boundaries, seeking what we need; what all of this time has been for.”

 _All of this time,_ she says; like Nadya hasn’t been struggling with her self-imposed guilt every single day. Like she hasn’t been pushing herself — sometimes a little too far too quickly — because it’s been _six whole freaking weeks._

Six weeks of psychic _Karate Kid_ training.

Six weeks of (admittedly delicious) gut-wrenching French food and wine.

Six weeks of absolute radio silence from New York.

“We will begin plotting our course tomorrow evening.” 

Serafine drags her attention back to reality as she stands; Adrian with her out of habit. She grabs her coat from the back of the chair and folds it over her arm. The last look she throws Nadya’s way is a proud one.

“May I walk you out?” Adrian asks and offers her his arm. It takes everything in Nadya’s power not to burst into knowing and maybe even childish giggles. Like he hasn’t _walked her out_ every night since they started this?

But hey — with roommates as nosy as them she gets his want for even a little bit of privacy.

The woman takes his offer with warmth in her eyes. “I would be glad of the company,” she accepts. The pair exit the apartment with remarkable grace; especially seeing as their sharp vampires ears definitely hear their audience’s laughter the moment the door closes behind them.

When she’s gulped down enough water to hope the Gaius in her head is drowning, Nadya joins Lily on the couch with a box of leftover macarons. It’ll be sunrise soon; not enough time for them to get into any trouble worth the effort.

“Any-f’ing ah’ all?” Nadya asks around her mouthful of sugar; jerks her chin in the direction of the news station Lily must have settled on some time ago.

It’s no surprise when Lily shakes her head. Nadya doesn’t even know why she asks anymore.

 _Yes she does._ Because she’s Nadya.

* * *

“Are you _sure_ you don’t wanna come with us?” But this is the third time she’s asked and by now the jig is up — Lily knows full-well she keeps turning back because it’s an excuse to try and inch her way away from the door. A way to try and find a reason to stay right along with him.

Judging by the wry amusement in Adrian’s little smile he’s pretty aware of it too.

“I’ve never really been a _club_ kinda guy. But don’t worry about me — you guys go have fun and have a drink on my behalf.”

“See?” Lily all but snaps. “We’ve practically got his permission to go!”

Jax can be seen through the open front door; waiting in the hall with arms crossed over his chest and foot _tap-tapping_ in exasperation. “You can’t force her to go if she doesn’t want to go, Lily.”

Which is something even Nadya has a hard time believing. It’s like he’s never met her or something. Or maybe it’s because he _has_ — because he knows trying to convince her that she isn’t the Grand Master on High in Control of Nadya’s Fate will only ensure their night out could only be stopped by a nuclear apocalypse.

Nadya wrenches her wrist out of Lily’s grip with no small amount of effort. If she bruises, someone’s sleeping on the couch. “Nadi’ I swear to _God —”_

“I’m coming, okay?! Yeesh just…” Her words trail off when she looks back to Adrian. All on his lonesome at the kitchen table normally shared by at least two others, staring at his laptop screen with his usual work-busy furrowed brow and his index finger curled over his chin in deep thought.

“Just gimme a minute, okay?”

Lily holds her hands up in mock surrender. “Fine, fine. You’ve got three minutes before I haul you out over my shoulder. And don’t think I won’t.”

“I know you too well.”

“Damn right.”

She closes the door behind her, separating them and leaving Nadya and Adrian actually and properly alone. When it’s clear he won’t be looking up from his screen of his own free will she huffs her way over to him, practically stomping in her heels by the time she gets there, and forces the lid closed with an open palm.

Adrian jumps back, startled. Even with superhuman senses he gets too lost in his work too often.

“Well hey there stranger,” sarcasm dripping from her drawl, “welcome back to reality.”

Adrian tries to frown but there really isn’t any heart in it. He’s barely frowned at all these last few weeks — not unless Psychic 101 ends up leaving her with a headache the size of the Eiffel Tower. It’s been refreshing to see; which is what makes seeing even the shadow of it now all the more frustrating.

“Please come with us?”

He takes her outstretched hand and squeezes it with his own. “I’m not kidding about the clubbing thing, Nadya. And I don’t want you to miss out on my account. Go, have fun, enjoy the real Paris for once. Serafine is right — you need a break. I think we all do in our own way.”

Nadya’s eyebrow almost becomes one with her hairline.

“You know this —” she circles her finger around the laptop, “— this is the exact opposite of _taking a break.”_

“Not for me.”

She’s probably winding down on her allotted time. When Nadya reaches out Adrian meets her halfway; both of their hands together swinging between them. He’s probably thinking the same thing, too, since he throws a look towards the door fully under the assumption Lily is about to storm her way right back through. Likely while using Jax headfirst as a battering ram.

Adrian brings her back to reality with a tiny squeeze. “You don’t have much time left to tell me why you’re _really_ so hesitant. I’d use it wisely.”

Nadya whines; it comes out more petulant than anxious which definitely wasn’t her intention in the least. Luckily Adrian knows her pretty well already.

“Are we bad people for doing this?” She asks, and bites her bottom lip.

“What, going out?”

“Doing something fun.” _Because Kamilah definitely isn’t having fun. Maricruz definitely isn’t having fun._

So by that logic they definitely shouldn’t be having fun. Right?

“Nadya… c’mere.”

And this, right here, is the reason she’s okay with not being able to double back to her apartment for her anxiety blanket. Adrian’s hugs are just as fulfilling; just as calming. She buries her face into his shoulder and squeezes so tight her arms start to prickle with pins and needles and he knows just the right amount of pressure to give back.

He pets her hair with a small sigh. “I don’t think I’m telling you anything new when I say this, but things… aren’t all that great right now.”

“Wow, really?”

“Really. But this may surprise you — things are still going to be not-so-great tomorrow. Or the day after, or the day after that. It’s terrible, I get it. Every night I wake up and my first thought is always the same; _‘this isn’t the day I’m going to fix things.’_ And that eats me up inside. I’m sure you’ve seen it… because to me it feels like if I try and pretend I’m _not_ battling those thoughts then I’m doing a disservice to everyone who stayed behind; especially to those who didn’t have a say in the matter.

“And there’s nothing wrong with feeling that way, or thinking negative thoughts. In fact, I think they can be great reminders for what we’re working towards, here. What everything is _for.”_ Adrian eases her back, practically forcing her to look him in the eyes. He may be smiling more but in the end that doesn’t make up for the fact that Adrian likes to shoulder a lot of the world’s emotional guilt. Nadya does, too. It’s probably why they get along so well, huh? “But if you don’t step back and remember what makes the loss of something so sad to begin with, then you can get caught up in all that negativity way too easily.”

Nadya’s sigh is a heavy thing, but she feels the weight — the _burden_ of it lessen like the oxygen in her lungs. Adrian’s right; they both know it. But how dare he use his years of experience and immortal wisdom against her like this.

How dare he make her feel so _young._

“I know.”

He nods. “Kamilah stayed behind because that was the right thing to do. But I think we both know she’d be giving you the lecture of a lifetime if she knew you were spending all your time beating yourself up about it.”

 _Ugh, true._ “Yeah, and when she would be done all the time for going out would have been used up.”

“Exactly.” He kisses her forehead and tries his level best to shift her hair back in place. He fails, of course, but nobody’s perfect.

“So go and enjoy yourself for tonight. You’ll feel less guilty tomorrow, I promise.”

“Promise me you won’t brood here all alone tonight, instead?” Which makes Adrian laugh and leaves Nadya more than a little confused. Less so when she catches his smile.

“Who said I’m going to be alone?” He glances at his watch. “Serafine should be here soon. And you guys were supposed to be long gone by now.”

_Ew. He’s staying behind to get lucky._

“Just… don’t forget to put something on the door,” after a quick ruffle to his hair for revenge, Nadya slings her purse over her shoulder and makes to scram, “your tie, a sock, _something._ I’ve seen enough things to scar me for this lifetime.”

“Not funny, Nady—!” She cuts him off with a closed door.

Jax heaves loudly. “Finally — can we go?”

With Lily’s arm looped in hers Nadya starts to walk rather than give him a verbal answer. “This side of you scares me, you know that?”

“Not me,” Lily chimes in, “after my banger I’m convinced you were a regular Travolta in your heyday.”

“White suit and all?”

“White suit and all.”

Their laughter follows behind Jax like a banner of shame all the way down the apartment stairwell.

* * *

By the time they make it to Hip-Trendy Parisian Club Number Three, there’s nothing left for them to do but finally be honest with themselves.

None of them are really _“club people,”_ and even if they were there’s something so fundamentally _wrong_ with the sight of people partying, kicking back; enjoying their lives. Of course these random strangers don’t know any better; their lives are weird and complicated in their own unique ways but for Nadya, for Jax and Lily? All they see are blissfully ignorant victims dancing and grinding and drinking their way through the end of the world.

Not that they don’t nab a few of those drinks for themselves on the road to enlightenment.

Lily forces her way none-too-gently through the throngs of neon-clad pretty faces, finally arriving to their little standing table like she’s made it home from a decade-long war. Nine shot glasses scattered on the tray, more than half of them the same color purple as her locs, and they all grab one and raise the first drink in cheers the same way they had at the club before this, and the club before that.

“For Kamilah.” 

“For Mari. _Salud.”_

“For the Shadow Den.”

In what is now a well-rehearsed choreography, the trio knock back their glasses with gusto. Is she following Adrian’s advice and trying not to wallow in guilt, yes. Does that mean they can’t take a drink for the things their hearts ache for, absolutely not.

Artificial lime flavoring does wonders for masking the alcohol’s burn all the way down to her stomach where it settles just about as well as every other weird flavor before it. When Nadya comes back up she sets the glass down a little too heavy-handed; lets her world spin for a moment in ways that have abso-tootly nothing to do with vampire memories or psychic visions.

Well, that’s what she thought, anyway.

Her brain has a different idea and has decided (without her permission, to be clear) that it’s totally okay to blur the lines between reality and memory. It wants her to see things that aren’t actually there.

Oh, he looks like he is. Sticking out like a sore thumb in his crisp but ill-fitting suit and a scowl that probably sealed in place when he was Turned. Among the party-goers and club kids he’s not easily missed and the fact that he isn’t even trying to blend in all but hammers home the fact that he can’t be real.

Much to her surprise Nadya doesn’t even have to think hard to place where she’s seen his face before. Then again all of the Baron’s goonies look the same at the end of the day; stock-cut henchmen out of a bad British spy flick.

One second he’s standing there, a literal sore thumb in the neon-colored chaos. Three blinks later he’s gone; retreated back into Nadya’s unconscious where she will, inevitably, replay the events of that night on the airstrip over and over and over again.

“Welp, it’s official,” Lily takes her remaining two and knocks them both back together, because why not apparently, “we are the biggest bummers to ever bum around Bummertown.”

It’s enough to bring Nadya out of her Bloodkeeper weirdness and back to the others. Jax, leaning over the table with his head sagging onto his palm, looks to her for translation. Not the first time tonight.

“We’re very sad, dear.”

“Oh, yeah. But that’s not a real place, right?”

“No, dear.”

He clicks his tongue and takes his time sipping something with edible glitter swirling around inside. Flecks shimmer in dazzling rainbow on his upper lip when he’s done, but she can’t muster more than a “heh-nheh” at the sight.

“That’s the double-edged sword of being a mosquito, you know?” Lily looks at them both like they should very much know what she’s talking about. They do not.

Nadya pushes her glasses up carefully. “Uh… _pardonnez-moi?”_

“You know…” flicking over one of the empty glasses, “on one hand, you can’t get drunk. No hangovers is literal nirvana. On the other hand, you can’t get drunk. And I think I’d give my left tit to be drunk right now.”

“You _did_ always prefer your right one.”

“It’s better shaped.”

Twin looks make their way to Jax at the same time, and finally there’s something worth laughing at. He’s looking between them like they’ve burst into spontaneous French and he’s never heard the like in his life, and that’s pretty freakin’ hilarious. He doesn’t even let her try to translate in between bouts of laughter; just holds up his hand and looks away with a disgruntled “I don’t want to know, I really _really_ don’t. 

“But —” and doesn’t that make them snap back to attention, “— I’ll agree about the booze thing. It’s not hitting the spot, you know?”

Lily nods in solidarity. “Just what I was thinking.”

“We could always try somewhere else?” Nadya offers, and tries not to look as utterly offended as she feels by the mutual sympathy the vampires send her way.

“Not like that, it’s… Lily, you explain it.”

Subtle wink. “It doesn’t —” —subtle wink— “— hit —” —subtle wink— “— _the spot,_ Nadi’.”

Not the way Jax would have done it but he did hand it off, so that’s on him. “Not like we were dining out every night at the Shadow Den, but sharing the rations on Raines’ plane between three vampires doesn’t even reach the bare minimum. D’you get it now?”

 _Yeah, she got it after the first wink, but thanks for hammering it home._ And she feels pretty bad about not considering their plight earlier — choosing instead not to look when the day’s blood bag makes the rounds rather than make sure everyone was getting their fair share.

As she sweeps a long look over the crowded club, though, it doesn’t seem like one or two people heading off for an hour or two would be all that noticeable. Right? The advantages of fast-paced urban crowding.

“If you guys need to, like, do the thing, I could be lookout?” she offers. Jax doesn’t miss a beat to laugh, like she’s suggested robbing a bank to meet a measly bar tab, but when he glances to Lily she isn’t joining in. In fact, she looks incredibly thoughtful.

“No.”

The younger vampire whines and stops her foot against the concrete dance floor. “Come on… we’re careful! And it’s just once.”

“We haven’t scoped the territory, noted the exits… we’d be sitting ducks for that order of hunters.”

“I get that,” Nadya agrees in earnest, “but do you really think there’s enough of them to scope every club in Paris, or even all of Europe?”

“I think risking it is inviting trouble.” And maybe she’d be content to let the matter rest if he looked as sure as he sounded. But it isn’t a trick of the lights that have his eyes changing color; Lily’s either. Nadya recognizes the look and by now she’s been around vampires long enough to know when the hunger starts to hurt more than the reasons for it help.

All it takes is for Jax to look at the flicker of desperation Lily normally keeps hidden in her eyes. Maybe it’s easier for someone else to feel it, too. “Okay, okay,” he grunts out, immediately sliding into a different kind of leaning stance. One that reminds Nadya of a tiger; of the predators they actually are. “But we do this as carefully as possible, and we need to find someone who won’t think twice about what’s going on.”

Lily grins wickedly. “So someone high off their asses, got it.”

Anyone else — and perhaps even a version of Nadya in which none of the events of the last year-and-then-some have never happened, thus making her staggeringly _normal_ — would— _should_ —find this to be _‘too far.’_ But that version of her doesn’t exist. The last year-and-then-some _did_ happen and Nadya would rather her friends do what they can to keep themselves safe and strong and very much _not_ easily beaten bloody. Despite all of that and with her compromised morals aside, though, she draws the line at actually helping them find someone. That’s a bit like asking a vegetarian which beef tenderloin looks the best, isn’t it?

The girl Lily and Jax finally agree on is ordinary. Well, ordinary in a hangs-out-in-French-clubs kind of way; so almost alarmingly pretty in ways Nadya doesn’t want to describe for the health of her own self-image. There’s a moment where she wants to question their choice only because she doesn’t… _look_ like she’s on something. But when Jax goes over with his dark hair swept a bit over his eyes and the top _three_ buttons of his shirt undone and does his thing — Nadya realizes she’s just a hilariously bad judge of sobriety.

_Probably doesn’t help that she’s not too sober herself._

Could be minutes, could be ages, either way Jax finally gets the young woman to follow him out through the back door of the club. “He told her he had a motorcycle,” Lily tells her, making sure to lean in and keep both of their heads down as they abandon the rest of their drinks and follow soon after, “which actually isn’t that bad of an idea.”

“What a gentleman.”

“Actually you’d be surprised. He dresses like a bad boy but he’s pretty tame once you get to know him.” No matter how much she wants to doubt it, though, Lily _would_ know wouldn’t she?

Abandoning the humid atmosphere of the club for the outside world is like traveling to a whole different planet. And it’s one Nadya isn’t sure they should be on; not when the abrupt shift in all her major senses acts as a big fat slap in the face to the fact she’s definitely had more than she thought. It’s like the lack of constant thrumming of bass in her veins throws her off-kilter; has Nadya reaching out for Lily’s arm to steady herself on something, well, steady.

“You sure you’re okay to be lookout?” She gives Nadya a once-over that’s just long enough to show she’s reconsidering. Which simply cannot do. So she pulls up her Big Human Girl Pants and practically shoves Lily away.

“I’m fine!”

Lily’s eyes narrow in suspicion. “I dunno… you’re reminding me of Easter again.”

“Hush, we promised never to speak of Easter.”

“Well at least you remember that.”

It’s the perfect place for this sort of thing; an alley only open at one and and with a large chunk of old wooden pallets stacked precariously against one wall and a dumpster pressed up against the other. The smell isn’t exactly what Nadya would call appetizing, and it can’t be much better for Lily’s hyper-senses, but the hunger wins out over bad smells just like it does over continuing to argue. She squints through the fingerprint smudges on her glasses, trying to catch a glimpse of Jax in the darkness, but all she can see are shadows. Can’t even tell if they’re moving or not.

“Is he back there?” Turns out _sight_ isn’t what was needed, though. Nadya isn’t exactly familiar with dingy alley makeout sessions but she does know what intense kissing sounds like. “This is gonna scar me for life.”

Lily pecks her cheek; when she pulls back her eyes are bright and red and near-primal. “You’re the best B-F-F ever, you know that?”

“Yeah, yeah, go… slurp or whatever.”

She’s _lookout,_ remember? No amount of money could get her to follow and watch.

With a couple (light) smacks to her cheeks and a big gulp of wintery air Nadya whirls around on her heel. The club back door is on her left, the mouth of the alley dead ahead — oh yeah, nobody’s gettin’ in here without her knowing about it.

Well… nobody except for the returning hallucination of Evil Henchman #1.

“Just ignore him, he’s not real…” Nadya mutters under her breath. The same thing Serafine had her say the first time this had happened, and every time after. Eventually her psyche will re-align itself or… re-build her defenses or… whatever technical term there was for the echo of her own memory going away on its own. “Or at least try and think of someone less ugly.”

The hallucination frowns; deep lines carving themselves into his face all the way up around his lumpy bald head.

Nadya’s halfway to pulling out her burner phone to beat Lily’s high score on ‘SNAKE’ when it dawns on her.

_Hallucinations don’t react._

“Found you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're curious, yes I did look into the estimates on exactly how long the actual plot of the canonical BB2 took (including Paris, the crypts, Vlad's castle, Mydiea + the Order, etc) all the way back to returning to New York. And it was... like maybe less than 6 days max. So, as in typical _Oblivion Bound_ fashion, I made the stakes a little more critical and impactful with a pretty big time jump at the start of this chapter. Hopefully it makes sense!
> 
> For the first time in a long time I'm making really good headway with the rest of this book. For a while I was really playing catch up with my weekly updates but at this moment I'm already working hard on Chapter 26, so... if that tells you anything! Nah, from the looks of it I plan on closing out _Destiny II_ Part 1 at around 30 chapters plus the Epilogue. Exciting stuff! As always, thanks for reading and comments and critique would be fabulous.


	19. The Catalyst

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A familiar face shows up to aid Nadya, Lily, and Jax. News out of New York only reignites the fire of their resolve; and they're gonna need it for the journey ahead. Because as it turns out the answer they've been looking for has been under their feet all along.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **content warnings:** violence, language, blood, injury, mild dissociation, trauma

_“GET OUT OF HERE! GO!”_   


_“Ohmygod— is she okay?!”_

_“I SAID GO!”_

“HEY, DR. EVIL! GET THE FUCK AWAY FROM HER!”

In defense of the universe, Nadya had practically _begged_ it to screw them over by taking precautions. Because she had wanted Lily and Jax to stay in fighting shape. _Fighting shape_ meant they would need a reason to fight, obviously, so the universe provided in the manner it tended to do best; way more than necessary.

Mediocre survival instincts meant Nadya had tried to catch herself mid-fall. Only it’s pretty hard to catch yourself when you’re flying backwards. The skin of her palms stings raw and riddled with splinters and her left wrist probably shouldn’t want to rest in that particular direction naturally. None of that taking into account the splitting pain in her sides and wet warmth sticking to her hair and matting it rusty red at the back of her head.

_But hey, thank goodness this nice soft pile of wooden pallets was here to break her fall!_

Nadya’s panic only elevates when she opens her eyes and the world is nothing but colorful blurs and loud noises spinning somehow both directions at the same time. She searches blindly with the wrist that hurts the least, wincing every time she finds a new fragment of wooden plank instead of her glasses. But she almost wants to stop looking if only to avoid having to watch the gruesome scene in front of her in high-definition.

It’s two against one but that’s like asking two people to stop an incoming semi truck barreling at them full-speed. Times like these Nadya hates being right; Lily and Jax are _tired_ and to her horror it shows. The black blur taller and faster than the both of them combined tossing the red and purple blurs aside with broad sweeps of his arms and punches that she can hear break bones.

And what does her stupid brain do? It goes and tells her that Jax will never let her hear the end of this since it was _Nadya_ who refused to let him bring his katana.

Nadya finally wheezes in relief as her palm smacks against her glasses. She shoves the frames against her face with their missing nose piece and cracked left lens just in time to see the tails of her friends’ club-girl donor fleeing around the alley corner. The lights from the street go in and out of her line of sight as the giant wall of a vampire moves faster than the laws of physics (or fair fights, for that matter) should allow. The Baron’s hitman catches Lily’s fist mid-swing and twists her backwards. He grins, relishes in her cry of pain, and hurtles her face-forward at Nadya and her pile of pain.

“Lily!” Desperately she pushes through all the ways her body screams in protest; scrambles onto her knees and over the uneven scraps of wood just as Lily skids to a stop and blood chokes out between her lips.

 _This is all her fault._ She should know by now; the difference between what’s real and what isn’t. If she had said something, or even just gave it more than a dismissive thought…

“Bastard!” shouts Jax through his own bleeding, gnashing teeth. With fangs bared he uses their attacker’s hulking weight against him and hurls the vampire over his shoulder. He collides with the brick wall with a solid _thunk_ and an animalistic growl, but they’re powerless to do anything but watch as he stands, dusts himself off, and grins bloodthirsty and vicious.

“What the _fuck…”_

“Heh—eheh —” by the time he wipes the blood out of his eyes his wounds have already healed without a trace, “now see, th’Boss said t’a make it quick. But this is just too damn funny!”

Even though it pains her to do it Nadya pulls her focus away from them — they’re still standing. The same can’t be said for Lily; she watches helplessly as a cut on her best friend’s temple struggles to knit itself closed all the way.

“A-Are you ok—kkay?” Lily coughs through it. Nadya catches a trembling hand with one of her own and squeezes it feebly.

“I’m fine. You’re not—not _healing_ Lil’ just stay still _you’re not healing!”_

Lily mutters something under the labor of her recovering lungs that sounds a little too much like _“I’m already dead relax”_ for Nadya to deign it worthy of a response. The glassy stare upwards she’s getting is really starting to freak out — until Nadya realizes Lily’s looking up sure, but she’s fixated _on_ Nadya’s bleeding arm.

“Here—herehere, take what you need!” She tries to shift them, to slot into the awkward position the act requires, but of course Lily chooses _now_ of all times to start actively resisting her help.

“No.”

“Lily Spencer I swear to god —”

 _“No.”_ She insists, harder this time, and it breaks Nadya’s heart.

Their attacker is no ninja-trained assassin but that doesn’t matter in the end. He’s clearly older than Lily and Jax combined and maybe if Adrian were here — or Serafine — but they aren’t. That won’t change no matter how much she panics or begs for the universe to take it all back pretty _pretty please._ They’ll just have to deal on their own because there’s absolutely no way she’s going out like this. Not at the hands of a _mobster cliché._

“Stay here.” It’s a redundant thing to say as she eases Lily’s head onto the ground, careful to try and not disturb the first stitches of healing skin Nadya can see faintly under the streetlight. “I mean it. I’m gonna…”

_Yeah, you’re gonna what, supergirl? What in the sam-hell are you gonna do?_

Turns out the universe listens for the not-as-terrible stuff, too.

_“NADYA! CATCH!”_

Everything moves in a blur, but in slow motion. It definitely doesn’t give her time to actually think of a plan but when do plans ever actually _work,_ anyway? Jax twists his body with all his might as he whirls a heavy-heeled kick to the henchman’s face. Several teeth go flying but the important part is when he starts to stagger back, losing his footing over an uneven patch of asphalt. No more thinking, just acting — though her body screams in protest she stands and turns to the voice from behind and obeys its command without hesitation.

The splintered wood scrapes at her hand but she catches the makeshift stake just in time. _Ba-bump._ One heartbeat and the Baron’s lackey goes careening backwards with arms spread wide to grasp onto nothing but thin air. _Ba-bump._ Two heartbeats and Nadya skids around to shield Lily with her tiny mortal body as his fall eclipses the lamps entirely.

_Ba-bump._

By the third heartbeat she’s returned the favor with the sharp side of the plank angled upward and aimed right at his heart. His muscle is his own demise — only pushes him down farther on the jagged end down—down—down.

He doesn’t make it to the ground in time for the fourth beat. But that’s okay — time’s back to normal and Nadya doesn’t think she could count them if her life depended on it. Even though technically it just did.

The adrenaline saps itself from her limbs suddenly and all at once. Leaving her panicked, gasping and aching and unsure of what to do with that body that doesn’t feel like her own. Most of what Nadya inhales is dead bad guy ash which is only great in implication, definitely not in practice, which only makes her breathe harder, choke longer; an endless cycle of _whatthehelljusthappened?!_

“Whoa there — easy, _easy_ now.”

Nadya has no energy left to resist; she’s simply someone on the sidelines as strong and surprisingly familiar arms wrap around her ribs and help her lungs remember air, not ash. One hand reaches with gentle purpose and wraps around her own to pry the plank from her grasp finger by finger. “You can let go of it now,” and the voice coaching her is familiar too, even if it takes a minute for her senses to kick in and _make sense,_ “excellent catch, and better execution. But you’re going to — you’re going to hurt your hand worse. Please let go.”

Nadya watches with wide and wet eyes as Jax takes a knee in front of them.

“Do what Cadence says, Nadya. He’s trying to help…” not that it stops him from throwing a wary look over her shoulder where she can’t see, “… I think.”

 _Cadence._ Right—right… Wait what?

Nadya looks over her shoulder for the first time and yup — that’s Cadence all right. Cadence who had thrown her the sharp piece of wood and quite possibly saved all their lives in doing so. Not that trusting _her_ instincts would have been Nadya’s first impulse but hey; stranger things have happened.

Stranger things might just happen still.

She and Jax watch in silence as he looks over her hand, meticulously pulling out the larger splinters. There’s a shuddering movement out of the corner of her eye and Nadya almost wrenches herself from his grasp in her haste to check on Lily. His reflexes are quicker than hers though, especially now, and he clamps down like a vice.

“You suffered a serious fall. No sudden movements until I check you for a concussion.”

“But Lily —” And her voice sounds so confused, so _broken;_ Nadya hardly recognizes it as her own.

Cadence stills, then nods. “Right, yes, of course.” He pulls one hand away to rummage for something in his coat pocket, quickly procuring a small vial full of a clear liquid with a slightly off-purple hue.

He all but shoves it into Jax’s hands. “Give this to her. It won’t fix everything, but it’ll do the trick enough for us to get her somewhere safe.” His blue eyes flick between their faces. “You _do_ have somewhere safe for us to go, don’t you?”

Nadya doesn’t know how to answer that just now.

Paris was supposed to be safe. Ish.

After tonight, she’s not so certain.

“Yeah,” Jax answers for them all, and takes the glass tube cautiously, “what is this, exactly?”

Cadence doesn’t answer him directly; rather looks down at Lily with a small smile and a wink.

“Ivy says hello.”

Finally; something going right. “It’s okay Jax,” she reassures, and it’s enough for him to at least yank the little cork free and tilt the contents between Lily’s dry lips.

The effect is almost instant. Her wounds snapping together like elastic. But the skin is raised and pinker; more fresh. Like scar tissue. “It’s not a permanent solution,” explains Cadence; feeling around with two careful fingers for any breaks in the skin of Nadya’s skull, “but from the looks of things it might be some time before we get the both of you enough blood to recover fully.”

He finds the cut and Nadya winces. “Not too deep — that’s good. You’ll make the trip at least.”

_At least._

“We need to get moving. Who knows if your little snack called the police.”

Hobbling to Jax. Watching how uncomfortably _limp_ Lily hangs in Cadence’s arms. It’s all a bit of a blur really. All she can think is how Adrian is going to _lose his ever-loving mind._

But they’re alive. _They’re alive._

Which is more than can be said for their attacker.

* * *

Jax doesn’t mess around with trying to find his keys and kicks at the bottom of their apartment door instead. Alongside the ringing in her ears, Nadya hears several thumps and muffled tones of frustration before footsteps on the other side.

Adrian’s mildly discontent frustration one-eighty-s so fast it gives her whiplash. Only someone who knows him well would even know he was surprised; jaw clenched and frown deep with his years as he ushers the four of them inside and wastes no time sealing them in safely behind the door.

“Get her on the couch.”

Adrian is in and out of the kitchen in the time it takes Cadence to lay Lily down comfortably. Nadya cradles the back of Lily’s head in her palm, watching her intently while the others bustle around them both.

She’s not even thinking about how they are all back several hours earlier than expected, and with a very confusing plus-one. Not until Adrian takes a knee beside her, anyway, and causes her cheeks to flush scarlet.

Adrian notices immediately. “What’s wrong? Where does it hurt?”

She bats away his hand hastily. “Focus on Lily, I’m fine.”

“Then why —”

“Your jeans.”

He zips up his fly faster than her human eyes can comprehend. Honestly; Nadya takes it as a blessing.

Though, since they’re on the subject… “Where’s Serafine?”

Adrian ignores her. “What caused this kind of scarring? It’s unnatural for us.”

Jax procures the empty vial from his pocket and tosses it in the air. Adrian snatches it up without even looking.

“Cadence gave it to her...” Nadya looks up (and up, and up) to where the vampire hovers in the background; worrying his bottom lip between his teeth. “You said it was from Ivy, right?”

He nods so hard his glasses nearly slip from his nose. “Yes—yes it was a contingency plan, just in case.”

She winces at the sound of Adrian’s grinding teeth. “I know what dimensional horror she’s bound to — this had better not have roped Lily into anything she didn’t sign up for.”

“It won’t.”

“How can you be sure?”

“Because it was meant for me.” And even though Nadya is left with more questions than answers that isn’t the case for Adrian. He gives a fitful nod.

“… Thank you.”

Adrian stops wasting time then. Tearing the blood bag open with his fangs, he presses it to Lily’s lips with one command; “Drink.” She doesn’t waste a second in obeying. Weakly at first, but after the first few mouthfuls the energy of it seeps through her enough for Lily’s hands to latch onto the thick plastic without Adrian’s help.

Relief washes over Nadya like a cool blessing as the blood does its work. The red in her eyes grows more vibrant, the undertones of her skin more glossy and alive. The tough, puckered skin that had built up in scarring smooths out and heals naturally; aided the way it needs rather than whatever strangeness had been in Ivy’s concoction. Note to self: owe Ivy _everything._

Lily drinks and drinks until there’s literally nothing but the threads of air bubbles between the plastic layers. The sight reminds Nadya of a morbid Capri Sun juice pouch; which sucks because now those are definitely ruined for her forever. But she’d give up all the juice pouches in the world as long as it meant Lily was okay.

Adrian coaxes the bag from her tight grip; there’s a little tug-o-war before Lily finally comes to her senses and yields. “It might be a few hours before you feel back to your old self, so don’t go rushing up too fast, okay?”

The younger vampire swallows the last droplets on her tongue before she nods. “Yeah, okay.”

The immediate danger is gone; literally _poofed_ into ash. Nadya looks over her shoulder in guilt to where Jax is slumped in his usual arm chair; nowhere near as alert as he had been with the adrenaline still coursing through his veins. They should have saved _some_ of the bag for him…

But his bruises are already mottling towards yellow at the edges, and with his face wiped clean his cuts definitely aren’t as deep. He’ll live. Which is good — because she owes him her life.

“Jax…”

He’s not shown any psychic ability in their weeks here but he throws up his hand so fast she almost wonders if he _can_ read her mind. “Don’t gimme that look. You know I would have done it anyway.”

“Done _what,_ exactly?” Adrian asks with a long stare level at each of them individually. And none as much as he does to Cadence. “Not that a familiar face isn’t welcome, either, but what are you _doing here?”_

He offers a dry half-laugh in reply. “To cut a long and frankly distressing story short; failing miserably.” Only nobody finds it funny, even ironically. “I was trying to reach you before Gaius’ hit-man could.”

With grunted effort Lily raises herself on shaky elbows. Nadya hovers possibly too close just in case — she can’t help it.

“I like you and all, dude, but way to drop the ball.”

Jax snorts and nods in agreement. “Epically.”

Cadence definitely feels guilty; one look on his face says everything there. But even Nadya is having a hard time finding it in herself to forgive him this easily. “Who sent you?”

_“The only person who would know where to find you, of course.”_

The bedroom door opens with Serafine on the other side. Darker curls clinging to her face and still dripping water from the shower in the en suite; if she has any humility about her it’s hidden well. Well, that… or it’s all on Adrian judging by the ‘boiled tomato’ state of his expression. Absolutely no one who’s lived there for the last month is surprised, though, which speeds things up a bit.

“Kamilah Sayeed — obvi…ous…ly…”

In what she’s come to learn about Serafine; this is not a woman unaccustomed to anything less than speaking her mind with absolutely no regrets whatsoever. She doesn’t let a soul interrupt her and almost always has something to say no matter the subject. So to hear that familiarly lilting tone lose some of its command is enough to render the entire room not just _surprised_ but nearly _desperate_ to know why.

Cadence has to double-take to realize it’s _him_ that’s brought on this more-than-uncomfortable change in her. Serafine’s eyes roam the length of him and the scrutiny—nay, the _shock_ of her intense stare is enough to make him fidget with his collar and switch his lean between dominant feet.

“Can I… help you?” he asks awkwardly. Serafine doesn’t answer. It occurs to Nadya a little too late that maybe she _can’t._

Cadence’s discomfort only grows — Nadya doesn’t blame him when he hastily tries to fill the void of her silence. “Er—She’s right, though. Sayeed provided me with the address of where I’d be most likely to find you lot. At that time I was only supposed to make sure you all actually arrived here, in Paris, safely. But when one of her informants mentioned something about a lone gunman being sent abroad we realized too late that her office had been bugged. She would have come herself, but…”

The look he gives Nadya is forlorn, but she doesn’t let it weigh heavy on her. (If she did, she’d crawl into bed and never get up.)

“She’s needed there — I get it.”

“Dare I ask how things are back home?” And yeah, Adrian’s only saying what they’re all thinking, but that doesn’t make it any less harder for him to do. Even Cadence, lower lip caught white between his teeth and with his sudden appreciation for the interior decor of the apartment rather than the people inside it, probably wants to do anything else in the world but answer.

“Just get it over with,” Lily snaps to everyone’s surprise, “we deserve to know.”

Cadence agrees. “You do… right, right yes. Okay.”

On the surface it just looks like civil unrest. And in a lot of ways it is. Riots in the streets, protests against local law enforcement for not doing their jobs in keeping the harsher burrows of New York City safe. All of it stemming from disappearances that started small and scarce… but now border on mass kidnappings in their frequency. “They’re taking _humans?”_ Adrian chokes out. But the answer is clear in the regret in Cadence’s eyes.

The power of the city’s vampires was unevenly divided. Clans Lacroix, Baron, and the now-leaderless Castellanos were on one side, and Clans Raines, Sayeed, and Matsuo were on the other. Even on the surface, but they all know which side Gaius plays for, and how drastically his powers can tip the scales.

Kamilah and Maricruz were smart enough to use a lot of the civil unrest as a cover to smuggle as many vampires who opposed Gaius’ tyranny as they could. Unfortunately many of Maricruz’s old routes were well-known by the Baron’s lackeys and had to be shut down. “The rest are scattered across the island in hiding,” he explains solemnly, “the Shadow Den was raided almost immediately, and every night more and more safe houses were taken.

“Things are escalating, but the chaos happening in the daylight is all human, and nothing compared to what happens at nightfall. The city is practically a war zone. Protesters, rioters, dissenters, vampires on both sides. We did the best we could to quell the madness but things were spread so far it became difficult to tell who was friend and who was foe, even for those of us in the know. The only constant was…”

“Madness.” Whispers Jax, and Cadence reluctantly agrees.

“So what — you just _left Mari on her own?”_ Lily presses. Nadya squeezes her hand weakly.

“I didn’t want to; and she’s not really alone. But just like they haven’t contacted you, nobody knew if you were even still in Paris. Sayeed and Maricruz are the leaders of the movement. They couldn’t leave now, even if they wanted to.”

The cocktail of guilt, anger, adrenaline, and actual cocktail in Nadya’s stomach makes her want to hurl right there in the middle of the living room. She swallows down bile and lets out a shaky breath.

“We’re wasting time.”

She whips her head around to Serafine, who looks as though she’s worlds away and that’s _not cool._ “We need to do this tonight. I don’t care if it hurts — tear my head in two if you’ve gotta.”

“Actually Nadya…” It takes everything in her not to shrug off the hand Adrian puts on her shoulder. “We might have a lead on that front. Right, Serafine?”

There’s an immediate difference; a forced calm in the woman’s smile and a manufactured light behind her eyes. Nadya can’t fathom _why_ Serafine is suddenly throwing up brick walls and barbed fences around the usually open doors of her psyche, but she is. And as far as she’s aware, only the Bloodkeeper is psychically aware enough to notice.

“You gave me the idea actually,” Serafine says to her with a smile, “last night — when you mentioned the cacophony of memory to which you were accustomed before our training. You are right in that we cannot waste any more time, and I fear though you have progressed… it may not be enough. Not without a catalyst, anyway.”

“A catalyst?”

Adrian nods. “Think about it; every time you’ve uncovered a powerful or old memory something has triggered it, right? The Amulet, Jameson’s ability, that night in the _Musea Sanguis._ Places or objects of great power have guided you to what you needed.”

“Object memory,” mumbles Cadence under his breath, “of course. And you know where such a place or collection could be found; here, in Paris?” He’s looking at Serafine but it’s obviously a one-sided interest. Almost like she’s purposefully avoiding even a strand of blond hair in her eyeline.

“In the old days, Paris was not just a city; it was a home. _The_ home for all European vampires fleeing the way the Plague revealed who we were to those who would hunt us down. Beneath the catacombs you know is a deeper network of tunnels, extending farther than you can imagine. An underground city that served as the seat of Gaius’ power before he ventured to the New World.”

“The City of Shadow.”

Five pairs of eyes fall on Jax like a spotlight. Those words had come out of _his_ mouth… right?

 _“Ah… oui,”_ Serafine recovers first; obviously impressed, “how do you know of it? _La Cité Sombre_ was sacked centuries before your time.”

Their surprise clearly offends him; but like all things Jax brushes it off with a shrug of a single shoulder. “Where do you think I got the idea for the Shadow Den?”

Which — they are _so_ gonna be talking about that later. But for now…

“So we… what,” Nadya looks between the lovers, “go digging and hope I trigger something useful? What if it doesn’t work? It hasn’t always…”

“That may be, but this time you will have me to guide the passages of your mind, _non?”_ She won’t argue with that.

Adrian stands and grabs his still-open laptop from the kitchen counter. “We’ve already started planning out a route. Given the… _events_ of tonight… I think going underground—literally in this sense—might be a good idea anyway.

“And Cadence — we’d be grateful if you joined us. Just in case.”

“Of course. Whatever you need.”

 _We’d be grateful,_ Adrian says, but that’s not the unanimous opinion. Serafine opens her mouth to say something but stops herself at the last minute; thinks better of it and probably thinks no one notices, too.

That isn’t the truth.

With visible effort, Lily raises a trembling hand.

“I _know_ I’m gonna regret asking this…” but in true Lily fashion she asks anyway.

“‘Just in case’ of _what,_ exactly?”

* * *

With as many churches and chapels as they seem to end up in is it any wonder Nadya’s starting to piece together the universe might be trying to tell her something?

Then again, she _is_ walking in here with five of ‘the living dead’ so maybe the universe is just mocking her instead.

Still, if she maybe-possibly-kinda-sorta throws a generic prayer for safety going forward out into the cosmos, that’s her business and her business alone. Maybe it might even stop laughing long enough to send a little good energy back her way.

 _“Je suis désolé,”_ apologizes Serafine after turning them around for the third time, “when last I stepped foot inside this place it was not quite so large.”

“This ‘hidden entrance’ of yours still exists, right?” Jax asks with all the disbelief of someone who thought he wouldn’t _have to._ To her credit Serafine manages not to look annoyed that he would doubt her. Not like she’s given any indication to the contrary so far.

“Indeed. It was our hope that _La Cité Sombre_ would last for centuries to come, since at the time it seemed we would have need of it for so long. Each of the main entry points were barricaded by the Order in preparation for their massacre, but I personally used this as my means of escape towards the end of the bloody affair.”

Nadya doesn’t miss how the woman catches herself mid-look over her shoulder. She’s graceful enough to masquerade it as moving her hair aside, but Nadya knows better. Especially when Cadence comes up at her back; grumbling after hitting his forehead on yet another stone arched doorway.

Because it can’t be a coincidence that since Cadence’s arrival she hasn’t made one attempt or even so much as mentioned resuming their training. A less-paranoid person might attribute it to their new focus on gaining access to the vampiric crypts beneath the city’s famous catacombs.

Nadya’s paranoia is well-earned at this point, thank you very much.

They finally find it; a small roped-off area with none of the church’s updated electrical amenities to ruin the 16th century dead-people-chic. While Serafine and Adrian work in tandem to loosen the stone plate acting as a (pretty convincing) cover, Nadya instinctively reaches out to lace her fingers with Lily’s. 

_Comforting pressure, weight that can’t be faked._

“You’re awfully quiet.”

An adjective almost never associated with her best friend, yet here they are. Even the smile she gets as reply is a quiet one.

“I’m saving up all my references for when we actually get there.”

“Ah, I should’ve guessed.”

What more is there to say? Tons, literal tons; not that they do. Nor do they _need to._ Fingers squeezing so tight together Nadya swears it isn’t her imagination and her bones are really creaking slightly in resistance. But it means she’s there; they’re there — together. And there’s no one else she’d rather be playing _Tomb Raider_ with.

Despite their best efforts the grind of old stone that wasn’t made to be removed is more than a little loud when it finally comes free. They wait like statues — vampire ears craned up towards the chapel overhead for any sign of disturbance.

Nadya doesn’t want to think about what they might have done to ensure their secrecy had they been discovered. Thankfully she doesn’t have to.

_“Allez-viens, mes amis.”_

Serafine waves them inside one at a time. The rectangular entrance hole to the sepulcher is perfect size for someone like Nadya; and Nadya alone. Jax goes first; he takes most of the cobwebs with him and not without voicing his disapproval. Lily next — though Nadya has to quickly join her with their hands still entwined. She makes it down to the other side of the short tunnel just in time to hear a thud and Cadence’s echoing _“Mary Mother of Christ—!”_ before what little light is filtered in from the former chamber is eclipsed by his hunched-but-no-less-giant stature.

There’s a terribly morbid part of Nadya that watches Adrian following behind and thinks that, should Serafine wish it, she could cave in the top of the tomb with herself on the other side and that would be that. Gaius would win, the world would (probably) end, and she would probably die falling victim to starving vampires.

But the vampiress only doubles back when she, too, is halfway through the passage. She lifts the slab with a soft grunt and replaces it as best she can on this side.

The silence that follows is like a vacuum. Until—

“So hear me out, right, five vampires walk into a crypt.”

“… hey, Lily?”

“Yeah Jax?”

“Shut up.”

Having slid her way around them to take up the lead, Serafine is the first to shine her flashlight down the long (long… long… long…) passage ahead.

“If we are ready, then?”

Then she’s off. And they’re all off. Would have been nice if her stomach had the decency to come along for the trip, though.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heeere we go... as always comments and critique are welcomed and enjoyed!


	20. The City of Shadow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The key to defeating Gaius lies deep beneath the streets of Paris, beneath the famous catacombs to the once-revered jewel of the Vampire King's Court. For over 400 years the crypts have waited, abandoned. But if they want any chance of saving their home, they have to be willing to risk whatever may slumber within.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **content warnings:** language, claustrophobia, skeletons, mild dissociation, hallucinations, paranoia

It doesn’t bode well for her peace of mind that not even twenty minutes into their journey, Nadya can feel the beginnings of the all-too-familiar headaches starting to knock at her temples. _Worst. houseguest. ever._  


“Does this mean we can just… get this over with here?” Nadya grinds out. Serafine looks back at her from where she leads the metaphorical charge; her smile is sympathetic, but not at all reassuring.

“We’ve just hit the Seine, that’s all. It will pass.”

 _Great, just great._ Water pressure _is screwing her around before the actual creepy mojo. Why couldn’t they have packed aspirin in one of these dumb bags?_ “What about further on?”

Serafine doesn’t have an answer for that, though. And that says it all.

Nadya stops counting the minutes after that. For her own sanity if anything.

Lily is nearing the end of her shot-for-shot recount of _The Fellowship of the Ring_ (because she is personally offended by the fact both Adrian and Cadence lived during Tolkien’s lifetime and have neither read the books nor seen the movies, and also because Jax told her not to) when the narrow corridor widens out just enough to give her a little breathing room. It’s not much of a difference for the more broad-shouldered of them, but they don’t even need to breathe anyway.

Where the beginning tunnel was rustic and just a path carved out of the ground, this leg of the journey is noticeably different. The ground is more flat; earth packed from decades of footsteps long gone. The dug-out walls are cemented in place with limestone, and above their heads the ceiling curves up on both sides to end in an arch with a pointed tip.

Eventually they come across the first sconces laid into the wall masonry; metal dark and rusted over the years but sturdy and undisturbed. Serafine grabs a match book from her pack with one hand and brushes cobwebs from an ancient torch with another. It takes several matches to catch and hold a flame but once it does the effect is immediate — the path suffusing with flickering yellow light and a heat Nadya didn’t know she was already missing.

Adrian follows suit and lights the torch on the opposite wall. When they reach a new set every few minutes they always stop and help coax the fire to life. “To help guide us back,” is the explanation she offers; but the way her voice catches thick in her throat tells a different story.

A story none of them have quite gotten the full picture of, yet, and that may have been okay before — when it was lost to history. But now they are lost to history.

Serafine makes sure of that.

“When your entire immortality is spent living in the ebb and flow of tidal fear, it can be so very easy to succumb to the despair of it. To this day I would not be surprised to learn that was part of the Holy Knights’ doctrine calling for the faithful to purge the world of our existence. If it was not they who felled us with their own hand, then they sought to make eternal life so full of loss, of misery and death and fear, that we would do their work for them.

“There were many whom I called companions that succumbed to those very thoughts.” The way she says it; like she blames herself. “Those of us who remained did so for more than just ourselves. Many were like myself — we had seen the world change so many times with our own eyes it was no longer the one we were born into. And we knew we would see it again.

“We found ways to seek the proverbial light in the darkness. Many of us had fled to _La Cité Sombre_ from the richest courts of the mortal world. We brought our passion and fine taste here and to the crypts. The mortals hastened to be rid of their infected dead, so we took them off their hands.”

While Nadya tries to think of several polite ways to casually mention that something like that _isn’t something casually mentioned,_ Lily beats her to the punch.

“What did you people do with the dead bodies? Do I want to know? I swear to God.”

“Careful up ahead here, _mes amis,_ we’re getting close.”

It takes the combined efforts of all five vampires to pry open a set of double doors. The rotted wood practically crumbles to the touch, and the hinges barely bend half of the doorway before they snap and clatter to the ground.

Immediately a pungent foulness, thick as a wall whether it was tangible or not, assaults Nadya’s nose. A hair-curling stench of decay — of _death_ — Nadya is all-too familiar with by now. What an unsettling notion.

The open doorway empties out into a near-pitch black room. The last torches were too far back to give it proper lighting, but the bright blue-white of their flashlight beams reveal some kind of atrium. An outpost, maybe? Though it isn’t much taller than the path they just left it’s spacious enough for them to spread out for the first time in hours; that’s not something to take for granted.

Serafine crosses the space in long and purposeful strides. She already knows what she’s looking for; another set of sconces and torches framing the exit. The familiar _hiss-snikt_ of the match and the blessed warmth that follows is more than welcome.

A warmth that’s instantly sucked away; replaced by a cold wave of realization as the rest of the atrium comes into light around them.

“My god…”

Nadya doesn’t even recognize her own voice; feels the back of her clammy hand press up against her lips as if that might contain her shock.

It doesn’t.

Skeletons litter the flagstones at their feet. She looks down to see one a hair’s width away from the toe of her boot and instantly recoils; presses herself back against something solid she’s too horrified to immediately recognize. Adrian’s arms come around her protectively; but he can only do so much.

Old-fashioned armor, ancient and the real-freaking-deal, must once have fit snug and secure on these bodies. Not anymore; not with the flesh long since rotted away, along with whatever ate the rot itself. But without exposure from the elements they’re pristine and almost bleached. All except for the places where a thin blanket of grey dust coats the sharp jut of bone exposed in the armor’s gaps.

Objectively Nadya had known they were essentially entering one large burial tomb but… it isn’t until this moment that she’s faced (quite literally, eye sockets hollow and black as the void) with the gruesome reality of it all.

She’s just glad she’s not the only one.

Serafine recovers first. Lowering her head deep and reverent, words whispered on her lips so faint there isn’t even a trace of them in the stale air. _A prayer,_ Nadya slowly realizes; and she averts her eyes out of respect for the woman’s mourning.

She steps out of the safety of Adrian’s comfort, fingertips tenderly brushing his forearm.

 _Go to her,_ that touch says, because she can see he wants to. A want bordering on need. In a blink he’s across the room and hovering just shy of the woman’s trembling shoulders. Less confident here than he was just moments prior. Nadya’s heart goes out to the guy.

Jax comes up on Nadya’s left. He rests a hand on her shoulder something just shy of _tender;_ a hesitance in his furrowed brow she’s not used to seeing on that normally cocky expression. He coaxes her back with just his fingertips; she’s more than willing to trade places with him if that’s what he wants.

Lily wraps her arms around herself; isolating herself like an island in a sea of bone. Somehow Nadya has a feeling there won’t be as many violent video games in the apartment when all this is over.

 _If they survive it,_ a morbid part of her thinks.

In front of her Jax takes a knee, brushes the same fragile touch over the nearest set of remains. Not reverence, but not fear either. All it takes is the slightest pressure and the skeleton’s bottom jaw clatters to the floor. Only it’s not the bone that Jax can’t look away from. But rather the grey smeared on his fingertips.

A choked noise comes from Cadence. He clears the distress from his throat and looks away out of respect. And it’s in the weighted silence and dancing shadows that Nadya realizes _why_ they’re all so distressed.

“Vampires don’t leave skeletons.”

Nadya cringes; she hadn’t meant to say it aloud. Stating the obvious that everyone else had already come to understand maybe even from the moment they entered the atrium. Yet here she is, stupid human Nadya, who finally understands far too late that it isn’t _dust_ blanketed over the dead, under their feet, silky on Jax’s fingertips.

It’s _ash._

However small this room might be the dead inside are countless. More than the preserved armor and bone, they hang in the air; caught by the eye in the firelight like dust motes in the early morning sun.

_It’s only going to get worse from here on out, isn’t it?_

“The continent was stricken with Plague. As the dead multiplied, so did the faith of the desperate grow. The Holy Knights used that to their advantage; they used the dead and dying to lure our kind out with false hope, and starved the rest. What started as a refuge from the onslaught grew— _flourished._ It was more than a place to hide — it was, for the first time, a community.”

Her voice cracks and wavers more than a few times, but Serafine doesn’t let the emotions stop her. In fact they give her the strength to keep going; to tell a story long overdue. Not just to relieve the weight of it from her soul, but to fill in the spaces the Knights had tried to destroy — and prove their failure.

“For over two hundred years we had this.” Even with tears shining in her eyes, Serafine manages a wistful smile. “Long enough for some to have never known a life on the run. And long enough for a culture to flourish and grow within our ranks. To this day I still cannot fathom how _so much_ was taken from us so quickly.”

She buries her face into Adrian’s shoulder, seeking a comfort he gives open and freely. He buries a kiss on the crown of her head, face almost lost in wild curls.

“Kamilah only mentioned it once,” he murmurs, “I don’t even remember what for. But it was one of the only times Vega agreed with her without a peep, so it’s hard to forget.”

Serafine hums, nods. “He was still newly Turned when the City fell. Were he not a child of Gaius I doubt he would have survived.”

Nadya and Lily exchange glances, and they must be riding the same train of thought. One that goes to one town only: _Wouldn’t That Have Made Our Lives Easier-Ville, USA._

Cadence eases himself from the wall with his foot. “I’ve read sparse accounts of the City, but all of them date prior to 1570. And none of them actually… _say_ what happened.”

Whether Serafine is going to answer him is really anyone’s guess. When Nadya had first noticed it seemed like she was pointedly ignoring his (admittedly very hard to ignore, on account of his tree-like status) presence, she wrote it off without a word to anyone. Probably just too involved in her own drama, right?

But now… now Nadya’s not so sure. And that’s probably why she does respond; because if she doesn’t then there’s nothing _but_ surety.

“The Holy Knights raided the City.”

“Didn’t you have defense measures in place?” asks Jax with a frown. It earns him a harsh glare.

“Of course we did! But they were well-informed, or well-prepared. They sealed off the main gates to the surface and ambushed us when we were the most congregated; when our guards were lowest, during a night of celebration.”

Nadya’s voice is thick in her throat. “You were sitting ducks.”

“We were lambs, and the slaughter was led to us.”

“What does that mean?”

Serafine’s eyes glow from the nearby torch, but the look of them is nothing but cold; as dead as these forgotten skeletons.

“The Knights were told where they could find us; they were challenged to do so. A fool’s attempt at posturing; hundreds of lives sacrificed for petty glory.”

Cadence blanches. “Who would do such a thing?”

“Who indeed…”

Adrian keeps close even when Serafine pulls away; ready to be there, however she needs. But despite his kindness all it takes is one look for Nadya to see the uncertainty hidden right under the surface of him. Something to talk about later — if they can.

“Come —” the vampiress hikes her bag higher on her shoulder and makes for the only way forward, “— the City is vast; we have a long way to go.”

Which… yeah, that’s fair. They are on a time crunch and all, and the sooner she’s back up where there’s sky and clouds and birds the better in her opinion. But that doesn’t mean Nadya doesn’t keep her little butt propped against the wall until the last possible second.

Only she’s not the last one to get moving.

“Cadence, you coming?”

He startles and jerks his hand away from the top half of a breastplate. More like a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar than a vampire touching dead people armor. “Yes, I am. Sorry… this sort of stuff, you know,” he dusts off the knees of his jeans and stands back to full height, “it’s practically pseudo-porn for a vampire historian.”

He tries to laugh it off, but the attempt is as nervous as it is short-lived. Nadya’s pretty sure he’s frowning when he looks at her and asks “what’s the matter?” but she can’t be certain — not with the ridiculous carnival mask he’s decided to put on.

“Why are you wearing that?”

His hand flies to his face. Like most habitual glasses-wearers, more than once Nadya’s caught sight of him pushing up something no longer there. She feels that way right now — but better to rely on contacts for the first leg of their trip than trip and break her only pair before they really got going.

“What, my glasses?” — confusion slowly shifts to concern — “I’m not… _wearing_ anything.”

“Okay, pull my leg, but really.”

 _But really_ he feels around like he’s got no idea what she’s talking about. Which is frankly just dumb. It’s gaudy and gauche and some other g-word that means silly probably. But most importantly it’s there.

_Isn’t it?_

“Maybe you hit your head in the alley a little harder than I thought.”

He’s halfway to pulling a small pin-flashlight out of his jacket pocket when a voice behind her makes Nadya practically leap out of her skin.

“What’s going on here?”

The hairs on the back of Nadya’s neck stand straight up; not the first time she’s ever felt that happen when there’s a vampire at her back — she’ll take being biologically cautious over potential predators over obliviousness any day. But it’s never happened with someone she knows — someone she considers a friend.

Worse still, she’s heard _that tone_ from Serafine before. Biting; borderline cruel even. Filled with centuries of contempt that Nadya hopes — on some level — she’ll never get advanced enough in her Bloodkeeper powers to understand.

It’s how she spoke to Gaius in her memory of Versailles. And it’s how she’s speaking to Cadence now.

Fortunately (for him), he doesn’t take notice.

“Give us just a moment, Miss Dupont,” he clicks the flashlight on and coaxes Nadya forward, “I’m checking Nadya for a concussion.”

She tries not to tense at the woman’s touch on her shoulder. Luckily Serafine is too fixated on the situation to notice. “Has something happened?” Then, her lilting voice practically in Nadya’s ear—

“Did you see something?”

There’s too much at stake for her to start lying now. “It wasn’t a big… I probably just saw shadows or something.”

“Regardless, it could be important.”

Eventually Cadence angles the light away from her eyes. Nadya has to blink the spots away quickly because he’s barely finished when Serafine’s hands are on her shoulders and turning them to face one another. _Away from him,_ her mind supplies like an instigating little jerk.

Serafine sweeps a long look over their skeletal audience. “Did you see what happened here?”

“No. It wasn’t a memory, that’s why it’s probably nothing.” And judging by the look that gets her, if Nadya tries to brush the woman off one more time she might not get a choice in telling. Okay… fine. “It was a mask.”

“A… mask.”

 _She isn’t asking._ “Yeah, some dumb dingy gold _Phantom of the Opera_ thing. But that’s probably my imagination.”

For the first time since she laid eyes on him, Serafine turns and takes Cadence in fully. He towers over her; but he towers over most. But there’s something in the way she stands that puts her at an advantage, and leaves Nadya wracking her brain to try and understand it. Is it her years; does she wear them like Kamilah does? Or is it her confidence; a personality loud and full of life that outshines the muted greys of Cadence’s identity issues?

Or maybe it’s the one-sided recognition.

_She knows._

“Is she well enough to keep going?”

It takes the historian more than a moment to realize it’s _him_ she’s addressing; directly this time, too. He nods. “No signs of a concussion, and if it were something worse we’d see signs by now. I’m not well-read on psychic abilities by any means… but, Nadya,” offering her a shrug and an apologetic smile, “if you _saw_ anything… that’s on you.”

Right now she’d admit to just about anything to cut through this tension.

“It was a shadow, I’m sure of it.”

“I agree.” Serafine says, and wastes no time urging both of the stragglers out of the atrium.

Adrian and Lily are three torch-lengths down when they finally catch up. Serafine resumes her place at the lead.

But this time Cadence keeps several paces back. Trailing along after them in silence; the more intentional cousin of quiet.

Lily takes her place back up at Nadya’s side and links their arms together. “Everything good?” she asks.

“Of course,” Nadya lies, and meets her eyes with the truth.

_No. Not at all._

* * *

It comes as no surprise that her headaches keep getting worse. Nadya tries to trick herself into believing it’s the pressure from their increasing depth, but eventually she’ll have to accept her tiny human fragility has nothing to do with it — it’s the Bloodkeeper thing.

 _So long as it makes itself useful when the time is right,_ she reasons with herself—silently and in her own head; she’s not foolish enough to say it aloud, _then everything will be worth it._

“The King’s Manor and the heart of the City are just up ahead!”

Despite all of her earlier grief Serafine can’t control the swelling crescendos of excitement in her voice. The vampire’s equivalent of a heart beating faster and faster. Nadya’s relieved either way — how haven’t they walked all the way to Rome by now? Another ten minutes and she was _this_ close to sucking up her pride and asking Adrian to let her piggyback.

But putting the emotional sentiments aside — it’s just another network of tunnels. Hopefully taller and wider than the last but she’s not putting any money on it. There are only so many ways someone can style what’s essentially a person-sized anthill.

Suffice to say the sudden rush of fresh oxygen in her lungs leaves Nadya lightheaded for more than a few reasons. She swallows it greedily, fully intent on taking advantage of the fact she doesn’t have to share. Which is a good thing.

Because when they all finally stop it’s at the edge of a balcony carved into the side of a natural cliff, with a set of twin stone stairs winding down on either side to the vast expanse of a hollowed-out cavern. And the view punches the breath out of her anyway.

Jax digs the heels of his palms against his eyes.

“Tell me the claustrophobia is getting to me and there’s _not_ a giant French castle in the middle of Deep-Fuck-Nowhere, Underground.”

They can’t. Because there very much _is_ a giant French chateau in the middle of Deep-Eff-Nowhere, Underground. It just sits down there unassuming and strange; looking like someone could have plucked it from the surface world and just dropped the entire estate down a very deep hole to fall right here. Gardens and all. The back of the building is set into the cave wall, and a winding, sloping path cut into the face of the rock spirals up to a natural plateau where a waterfall rushes softly behind. As her brain finally manages to process more of the underground chamber Nadya notices many such paths all curving up and out across the echoing space; almost all of them leading to archways similar to the one above their heads.

Cadence whistles low under his breath. The sound carries, bouncing from stone to stone until a hundred Cadences are seemingly all in concert. “Talk about making a mountain out of a molehill.”

Adrian finally manages to pick his jaw up from the ground from sheer awe.

“To think all of this was under Paris’ feet for so long… untouched for all these years.” He glances to Serafine with another compliment on the tip of his tongue, but it dies quickly when he notices the wetness welling up in the corners of her eyes. “What is it — what’s wrong?”

Hastily Serafine shakes the tears down her cheeks and away. _“Ce n’est rien,”_ she chokes out thickly, “it is nothing.”

“Obviously not.”

Their hands meet at their sides; never too far apart.

“I had just assumed that the Knights had destroyed everything in the city. Even _le Château de L’Ombre._ If I had known that it survived the ambush…” She trails off when words can no longer equate to everything bottled up inside.

None of them try to imagine her grief. (Nadya tries her very best to think of anything else; even bordering on the inappropriate, because of anyone there she’s the one who truly could.) Something so beautiful, so captivating could only have been a labor of passion. And who wouldn’t miss the place they called home?

“But never mind the past — we cannot change it no matter how hard we wish or pray.” Nadya _swears_ she catches a flicker of her dark eyes, but her curls make it impossible to be certain. “If the manor’s interior is as intact as the structure itself, I have high hopes for our mission.”

She takes the lead down one side of the steep stone steps. Adrian stays close at her side, and one by one they follow. Natural moisture from the close waterfall have left the steps slick and eroded unevenly; but while Nadya practically tiptoes down each one Lily looks ready to just slide down the banister.

“Finally,” she grins and stretches high up to the (finally) out-of-reach ceiling, “some good luc— _ow!”_

Rubbing her bruised upper arm, Lily throws a bewildered glare at Jax behind her. “Firstly; _ow, rude!_ Secondly; that’s way no fair. You’ve got, like, fifty years on me you geezer.”

He just shrugs; doesn’t regret a thing. “Then stop jinxing us.”

“I’m using reverse psychology.”

“You can’t — that doesn’t make any sense.”

“You know what else doesn’t make any sense?”

Nadya tries to warn him as sneakily as she can, but the stubborn man ignores her and falls right into Lily’s trap. _“What?”_

“Your mom.”

 _Smack!_ Nadya facepalms so hard it echoes off the stone and follows them all the way down to the Manor.

Age and air thick with mist had rusted the front door’s metal hinges a long time ago. All it takes is the lightest push and the nails bend, groan, and _snap_ in their anchors. Serafine had meant to open the doors. Instead she pushes them inward in creaking defeat.

The fallen wood kicks up centuries’ worth of dust— _it’s just dust Nadya it’s just dust just tell yourself it’s dust_ —she tugs the collar of her sweater up over her mouth to keep from breathing it in. At least Serafine has the decency to look back at her with an apologetic wince. _“Désolé, Nadya,”_ she whispers, and kindly waits until the cloud settles before venturing on.

They creep through the shadowy foyer; shuffling feet and the eerie lack of her companions’ breathing makes Nadya feel like a thief in the night. It’s eerie; predatory. But finally it dawns on her… that’s the point.

They listen; they wait.

Just before her heart can jump out of her throat Adrian gives the all clear.

“We’re alone.”

But that doesn’t mean they can spread themselves thin. Better safe than sorry. Serafine says something up ahead about the residential wing… full disclosure — Nadya isn’t _really_ listening anymore. In her exhaustion she’s practically joined them in the ranks of the walking dead.

Thankfully for her aching feet they don’t continue much farther. A right turn opens out to a different foyer with similar stairs to the ones outside at the far end. Between sweet sweet sleep and where they stand, though, is another wave of collapsed armor and skeletons. She whines and tries to breathe through her mouth as much as possible.

They navigate the floor like a minefield of bone. Lily couldn’t look more ecstatic — though she’s decent enough to keep it to herself for now. Nadya wouldn’t mind if, like the video games they seem to be living now, there was some reward or loot on the other side. But nope.

Just more walking.

Nadya’s stamina bar runs dry parallel to their arrival. She’s only lucky in the little things after all. “Pick a room at your leisure.” Serafine says, and motions with both hands to old half-rotten doors lining either side of the hall. “We shouldn’t waste more time than we already have, but this is not a venture to undertake without a rested mind.” Nadya looks up and finds the vampiress addressing her specifically. “Once we begin, we can’t risk stopping. Conserve your strength.”

Nadya yawns unabashedly. “Don’t gotta tell me twice.”

And she’s not the only one. Jax ducks into a room on the other side of the hall without so much as a _“sweet dreams.”_ After a moment’s pondering Cadence takes the adjacent door equally wordless — though he at least offers Nadya a tight-lipped smile before closing the door.

Lily and Nadya take the nearest door; but hang back and watch as Serafine takes Adrian’s hand and coaxes him further on, teasing him under her breath. “My old chambers are close. Come along.”

“You know you guys should be resting too, right?” Nadya calls out; and doesn’t have even a lick of regret that the last of her energy is used for sass.

 _“Goodnight,_ Nadya.” Adrian says back; without looking.

Lily snickers beside her; puts one hand on the door ready to close it quickly before she shouts out to them; _“Use protection!”_ And slams the door shut.

* * *

“What are you still doing here? I thought we agreed to abandon the first places he would look.”

“For you — yes,” she answers; but can’t seem to tear her eyes away from the wide stretch of the city out before her, “but for me it would be a fruitless effort. When the time comes he will find me no matter where I am. It is inevitable.”

The smuggler vampire hates talking to peoples’ backs. Just one of the many things she’s come to learn about Ms. Espinoza in their weeks working together. So she isn’t surprised when the woman comes into view at her side.

It is inconsequential in the end; as most things are.

A long moment of silence passes around them, between them — through them. Neither compelled to speak by any forces greater than themselves. And neither big fans of idle chit-chat, either.

Finally she pulls back; wraps long fingers around the rooftop railing still wet from that afternoon’s rain. Standing here in their melancholy, however mutual it may be, is not a luxury they can afford.

They have such precious little time as it is.

“Is everything in place?”

The younger vampire gives a curt nod. “My guys could only get two trucks. There were some suits nosing around the warehouse night before last; asking questions.”

“Human?”

“Couldn’t be sure. They definitely knew something was up.”

There are too many possibilities; too many variables. Each worse than the last. Centuries of battles and wars — both as a weapon on the field and commanding from the shadows — but it is here, in the middle of a city that could not be more oblivious, that all of her experience fails her.

“The governor agreed to give us until the end of the week before bringing forth her own measures.”

“Forgive how fuckin’ little I believe that.” Maricruz laughs bitterly. The disrespect alone in the look thrown her way would have been grounds for her to bring the brandless, no-name vampire to a heel once upon a time. But those times are long gone.

 _And here she is, trying with all of her might to keep them from returning._ But the passage of time has never left her wanting for irony in any form before. Why would it now? She’s never been bored enough to pursue the universal theological truth, but whatever higher power was pulling her along really needed to back the fuck off.

“Regardless,” though she wishes desperately this weren’t the case, “we have no choice but to continue as planned. Make sure they are loaded and your men are ready to make the trip as soon as the riots begin. Our window of opportunity is smaller than I would like, but we’ll make do with what we have.”

“And if they don’t make it?”

A very real possibility; one she’s had to come to terms with against all else.

Against that familiar voice echoing in the back of her thoughts begging of her — _demanding of her_ — that she do everything in her power to save everyone. That is what Nadya would do. That is the kind of person she is.

That is the kind of person Nadya believes her to be, and she intends to be worthy of it.

“Then we relocate those remaining and try again.”

Whatever argument Maricruz wishes to offer is lost when the first high-pitched wails of police sirens trickle up from the streets below. Little flecks of flashing red and blue weaving against the darkness and towards the heart of the city. Towards the first of many uprisings to come this night.

“Looks like it’s go-time.”

 _Indeed,_ she agrees silently; yet finds herself frozen. Kept still by the air and the voice; once thought of — never quite forgotten.

But she would not _want_ to forget.

This is why she fights after all.

“You comin’ along this time?” Maricruz calls out to her; voice distant as she nears the rooftop exit.

She closes her eyes; feels the sharpness of the wind try to cut at her from this high in the heavens. Trying to chisel away at the eternity of her. It has before… but not this time.

“Are you coming or what?! Oi — _Kamilah!”_

Nadya can still taste the freshness of the city night air on her tongue. She keeps her eyes closed out of desperation; a longing that she knows is in vain but hopes she can power through regardless.

But it’s no use. The memory is gone… and Kamilah with it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What's that? Two chapters in one day? Well... I was feeling generous. That and this chapter and the last _do_ kind of go hand in hand. Enjoy!


	21. The Progeny

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nadya struggles with her role in the grand plan. A reluctant Adrian joins her deep in the recesses of vampire memory, where the key to understanding Gaius can only be found by seeing him through his progeny's eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **content warnings:** language, dissociation, violence, loss of identity, hallucinations, blood, death (unnamed character), blood drinking, emotional/psychological manipulation, discussion/s of past relationship abuse
> 
> **note:** This chapter contains flashbacks involving past Gaius/Kamilah, and subtle past Gaius/Adrian. These former relationships are not explicitly stated but are heavily implied. But this content will not go beyond references to the past.

Every room is filled with the funeral dirge of the forgotten; lost and alone and afraid and they died here, amid all the things that were supposed to keep them safe.  


Fear. Hatred. Love and loss. Vengeance.

She holds onto that thread. The feeling of comeuppance; the one where she feels invincible because she is, because she is the Second Son of the First Vampire, because she is King of every last miserable soul here and across the known world and _how dare they come into her kingdom — how dare they think they have the right._

She holds onto that feeling because it terrifies her down to the marrow in her bones. Because _Gaius_ terrifies her down to the marrow of her bones.

Nobody said this was going to be easy.

Nadya comes back to herself with a few rapid blinks; her eyelashes tickling her cheeks and _his don’t do that_ and her hair heavy on her shoulders and _his hair cuts off just shy of the base of the neck._ She’s both herself and not herself and that in-between is where she’s supposed to be, she knows it, but it’s a horrible and cruel place to exist and she wants out as fast as possible.

 _Not yet,_ something she both knows and can’t name whispers in her ear; tender like a lover can tenderly crush your heart with their bare hands, _not yet._

“Anything yet?” Adrian asks worriedly, still pacing in the same line as he had been when she last closed her eyes. “She’s white as a sheet.”

“Patience, _mon amour.”_ Serafine is, however, the exact opposite. The picture of calm and serenity. She makes Nadya want to rip her throat out just to see something other than that little smile on her face.

_Oh… that’s not her at all._

She sweeps her eyes among them and on some level doesn’t recognize who they are. The part of her that is Nadya still does… but that part has a hard time existing.

Well… all but one.

Kamilah stands so far back, so far in the shadows she nearly misses her. Nearly misses that lilting little smile and the darkness in her eyes; the calm and the storm housed in the same flesh. The nearby candelabra casts the reds of her dress deeper and richer in color. It makes the mask shine every place the delicate metal is bent, contorted to her high cheekbones and over her defined brows.

Enraptured, Nadya wants to go and join her in the dance. If only she could move her stubborn feet.

“We’re making good progress. To stop now would be to undo all of our work.”

“Serafine, I can barely hear her heartbeat.”

“Our hearts do not beat. She is of our kind in her mind.”

A different voice. “Yeah — no — I’m pulling the plug on this.”

Lily’s hands barely brush her shoulders and Kamilah is gone. Vanished into smoke… or something less. At least smoke leaves a trace. The touch is cold; a shock to her lungs that remind her _you are human, you need to breathe._

She doesn’t know where exactly she was, but she _does_ know that being wrenched back inside her body is a painful and nauseating thing. Lily has exactly one-point-three seconds to realize what’s about to happen before she’s far far away and very very grateful for her vampire speed. Because the meager contents of Nadya’s stomach — beans from a can and tough jerky and lots and lots of acid — don’t exactly do anything for the library decor.

She’s shivering like a leaf all the way up until Adrian comes around the table and drapes his jacket over her arms. If Nadya isn’t the only person who notices the easy, placating way Serafine smooths the frustration from her brow… he cares about her too much to mention it.

_Funny how love can do that to a person._

“That was…”

“Deep breaths,” the psychic coaches, a little too calm for how Nadya’s heart is trying to jackhammer its way back to the surface starting with her chest. “You need to breathe before you can speak.”

So she takes her time. Gulps down the stale air of the dead and would give literally anything to be back home, home-home, with her mom and the mountains and air that’s traveled the world over and tastes like it.

And in the end Nadya is glad she _did_ re-acclimate to reality. It makes it easier to take the dagger that once belonged to the King of Vampires and hurl it with all her might in Serafine’s direction. 

“That was _bull!”_

All her might still isn’t very much might — but the message gets through loud and clear. Serafine barely had to shift to avoid the dagger’s range and it doesn’t even stick in a shelf; instead clattering to the floor uselessly.

“Nadya, what the hell?” But Lily isn’t accusing; just confused. Even Adrian, who holds her back and firmly in her chair by her upper arms, doesn’t really put much heart into restraining her.

All that and Serafine is still picture perfect. “No no… this is a good thing. Feel that rage, the desire for violence. That is the thing that has driven Gaius forward for his own gain for millennia. The more you feel it, the more you understand it, the more you understand him.”

“I don’t _want_ to understand him!”

“If you are to access his memories then you must!”

“Shut up!”

Why are they all looking at her like that? With pity, with confusion and misunderstanding… they made her like this. They were the ones who wanted her to become this—this _thing._ This combination of something so far gone from her very nature and the pieces of Nadya that feel _bad_ about it.

She doesn’t realize she’s crying until everything goes blurry. Just as well — she didn’t want to look at them anyway.

Nadya doesn’t know for certain how long she sobs and blubbers into her own lap. They give her all the time she needs. They let her cry and cry and cry. And the part of her that isn’t quite Nadya anymore (and may never be again, why does he linger like a _disease)_ hates them for it. But luckily the time to calm down, to _feel_ without remorse — to feel remorse at all — helps Nadya find the scattered pieces of herself and put them back together.

Finally, Nadya gathers up the strength to lift her head. Genuine concern is a flickering warmth in Serafine’s eyes; and a face as beautiful as hers should never look so sad. Here they are anyway.

The woman reaches across the table, a handkerchief out as offering. Nadya takes it for the olive branch it is and dabs at her eyes.

“I am truly sorry Nadya, I am. I would not wish this on anyone, let alone someone as kind as yourself.”

It takes time for her to reply. They stay patient. “It’s like… like I’m him, and I’m trying to put on a skin suit that looks like me.” _… Ew._

Lily has always understood her down to her soul. The crinkle in her nose and her own muttered “ew…” pretty much confirms it.

Slowly Adrian eases himself into the chair beside her. She all but jumps into his lap; desperate for something solid to keep her tethered to the earth with her own two feet.

He hugs her back without hesitation. “Take your time.”

But she can’t — they both know that. He says it because he’s supposed to.

“It’s like…” — another shuddering breath — “the anger isn’t even the root of it. It’s pride, and guilt, and _grief_ all shoved together and there’s nothing beautiful left in the world, but he has to keep walking in it, so what else is left to feel but anger at everything you see.”

All those feelings… and if Nadya concentrates hard enough every feeling has a whisper of a memory. Kamilah in the wisps. Rome in the echoes. A dark, dark coffin in the place where her heart withered and rotted away. But none of them are the memories they _need._ So that means it was all for nothing and, lo and behold, Serafine was right. They’ll have to do it all over again.

She kinda wishes she’d saved a few of those tears right about now.

“You need to stop resisting him.”

Her eyes snap up to Serafine leaning her open palms on the nearest table. Resolution tight in her furrowed brow, there’s still a moment where Nadya swears the vampiress struggles to hold the high ground against her. Does some part of her see more of Gaius in her stare than Nadya is even aware of…?

Adrian steps up and, much to her surprise, takes Nadya’s unspoken side (for once).

“That’s easier said than done, Serafine.” Crossing his arms over his chest; “You and I know what he’s capable of; that’s not something Nadya should have to subject herself to.”

“Quite the opposite, actually.”

Nadya snorts. “I’ve seen what he’s capable of.” _I’ve felt it. Every horrible action caused with his hands… also with mine._

“You _see it,_ yes. But you need to _take it in._ You are a good person by nature. You’re one of the lucky few. And Gaius is not. How are you to live his memories through his eyes if you refuse to see with them to begin with?”

Just because she makes sense doesn’t mean Nadya’s suddenly on board for reliving the terrible beginning to all of the nonsense her life is currently filled with. “I didn’t have to _know him_ to see his memories before,” she argues, “I didn’t even know his _name.”_

Beside her, Adrian shifts uneasy on the balls of his feet. “True… but you were being influenced by Jameson, weren’t you? Unnatural things happening through unnatural means, triggered by everything happening with Vega.”

She gives him a look of _seriously, whose side are you on anyway?_ That definitely could be a little harsher. Maybe she just doesn’t have it in her anymore.

Or maybe Nadya just knows he’s right and doesn’t want to admit it.

“Okay,” say she agrees to board this awful train of thought, “then why can’t Serafine do the same thing here and now?”

“For the same reason we have taken the road less traveled with your psychic endeavors.” The woman worries her bottom lip plush between pearly teeth. “I would not risk shattering the already unstable walls we’ve built together.

“If you are able to access Gaius’ memories freely, you must _know him_ of your own free will.”

There has to be another way. They’re surrounded by thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of books down here. Not _one of them_ has a better alternative?

Nadya knows the answer — that’s why she bites her tongue. It’s just so… _not_ what she had been anticipating when she got out of bed this ‘morning.’

She reaches her hand out — doesn’t even know what she’s reaching _for_ — but finds it anyway. Feels the immediate relief that comes with the familiar weight of Lily’s hand in hers. Her best friend, always at her side. In all of this new world she doesn’t fully understand yet, Nadya knows without a shadow of a doubt she wouldn’t have gotten as far as she has without Lily at her side.

At least not intact, anyway.

“I’ll be right here.” It’s like she can read Nadya’s thoughts. Thank god, because they’re difficult to put into words. “Or… you know, over like, slightly to the left.”

Filled with a newfound reassurance (definitely not a newfound confidence, but isn’t her entire life story so far about settling for something close?) Nadya sets her jaw and nods to Serafine.

“Okay, what do I have to do?”

For what it’s worth she does seem to wish there were literally any other way. “We redirect our efforts — rather than find an object to tie you to the memory we seek, we find something to tie you to Gaius in his entirety.”

Lily dramatically flops back into her backwards chair. “Too bad we don’t still have the Amulet. Something opened only with his blood would be pretty damn sentimental.”

_His blood…_

Of course. It dawns on Nadya like a light-bulb over her head; suddenly then all at once.

“Actually… I think we have something better. We _have_ his blood, don’t we?” Her heart; hammering in her chest so loud it almost drowns out her voice. 

Nadya offers up her hand to Adrian. Her fingertips trembling. “We have you.”

His first instinct wars with his rational mind. His recoil turning midway into a shift of his shoulders and a sudden unwillingness to look at Nadya directly that she can understand to some degree. Especially given everything she knows by now.

But Nadya and Adrian and more alike than Nadya and Gaius; than Gaius and Adrian. They know they have to do this. So she’s willing to give him a few minutes for the reality to settle in.

Even if it does so uneven and forced. “I don’t… I’m not as _fluent_ in psychic ability.”

Serafine swallows down all the protests she wants to say. She knows they’re in her heart, but right now she can’t use that to guide her.

“That’s why you’ll have Nadya.”

Still… he’s a two hundred year old vampire and he’s looking at her tiny mortal hand like it’s going to bite. It will — in a weird and metaphorical way.

He inhales through his nose; deep and familiar. Like an echo of him she feels the musty underground air leave her lungs. She knows him well enough; knows when he’s preparing himself for the inevitable.

The connection that seals between them as his hand — palm rough and cool to the touch — slides into hers doesn’t hurt.

They squeeze. _One… two…_ and their eyes close in perfect sync.

When Serafine speaks again her voice is much closer in the endless darkness stretching out behind Nadya’s eyelids.

 _“Hélas,_ I wish I could tell the pair of you where to begin. But I am as much in the dark as the pair of you, and for that I am sorry.”

Nadya’s glasses slip down her nose as she scrunches it slightly. “Then how are we supposed to —”

“Simply _feel,_ and _know,_ and I believe your ability will take you as far as you need to go.”

_Feel and know._

_Feel. and know._

What the heck does that—

_“Are you questioning me?”_

_“No, my King, never.”_

_“Then tell me why I cannot bring it upon myself to believe you?”_

Gaius’ voice rings loud in her ears so unexpected, so powerful it makes her stagger back.

Nadya opens her eyes and, for a moment, has a visceral terror knot itself around her insides at the sights around her. The columns stretching up to a cavernous ceiling, the iron basins and their flames, the wretched Throne that sets her teeth on edge. She recognizes the Council Chamber instantly and can’t fight the intrusive thought that everything— _everything_ —that happened was just… a dream.

But _this_ is the dream. When the panic subsides she sees the differences; the stone is sharp and new, there’s no rust from decades of use on the fire pits’ rims. The Throne is as polished as the King who sits upon it.

And if none of that was a good enough indicator, the fact Nadya catches sight of a presently-alive Vega standing off to the side of the throne dais, and right next to Lester for that matter, only reinforces the certainty that this isn’t the present.

Kamilah stands closest to Gaius, her hair dyed darker and fashioned in a bob ending at the bottoms of her ears. Her eyes flick from Gaius on high to where Adrian prostrates before him; down on one knee in the dirt. Even from a distance Nadya can see the worry building like storm clouds on her eternally beautiful features. But it’s not hard to believe Gaius is too self-absorbed to notice.

 _Just a voyeur._ With that in mind, Nadya approaches the conclave of vampires with cautious steps. The more ignored she is the more confident she is, ironically enough.

Gaius sneers down at Adrian with a curled upper lip.

“The War changed you, Adrian. Ever since you returned you’ve voiced your dissent more and more. Do you not still have faith in me, that I have your best interests at heart?”

Adrian’s eyes stay trained on his dirtied leather shoes. “Of course I have faith in you, my King.”

“Your actions would speak otherwise.”

“I was thinking only of the risk of exposure when I —”

“Save your excuses.” And even the most flippant command shuts Adrian up like a muzzle. Nadya swears she can hear his jaw snap shut. “How you can let them live on your tongue to begin with baffles me… I would _never_ have questioned Her. Just as I would never have gone against a _direct order_ from Her.”

There’s movement out of the corner of Nadya’s eye; drawing her attention back to Kamilah. Every mention of the mysterious _‘Her’_ draws the tiniest frown on her rouged lips. A subtle action, but to Kamilah it might as well be a full-body flinch.

_Interesting._

“My King,” Adrian tries again, desperation cracking his voice as he lifts his head towards the throne, “I—”

Someone turns off the lights.

When they come back on laughter fills her senses; the air tastes of the muggy Southern heat and smells like gas and Nadya knows without a doubt she’s in a different memory.

The laughter is Gaius’ own. He claps his hands wide on Adrian’s upper arms and their matching smiles don’t settle well in Nadya’s stomach. If she were able to she’d reach out and take one of the glasses being offered by stoic-faced servants as they circle the party, but nothing in her life is ever that simple.

She doesn’t have to look far to find Kamilah yet again. Her hair wound into a tight bun at the base of her skull and hands resting empty at the base of her bodice. She’s not the only woman in the room wearing a dress but she’s certainly the prettiest; the most opulent. But the biggest difference is the approval she shares in. Wherever they are, whatever they’re doing — she enjoys it as much as her guests.

“This grin has been gone from your face for far too long, Adrian,” says Gaius affectionately, and she swears Adrian is _blushing_ as his Maker reaches up and fixes the crooked way his uniform cap sits on his head, “you know they have a name for you now; among the human survivors?”

“I did not, my King.”

“They call you the _Butcher of Antietam!”_ He practically shouts the title in praise, gesturing wide to the rest of his guests with one arm and pulling Adrian close by the waist with the other. Nails digging like claws into the wool of the younger’s Union coat.

With Gaius out of the way it’s easier for her to weave through the crowd and see Adrian up close and personal. She wishes she didn’t, though. Not when she sees the way he practically glows at the approval of his King; his Maker. How he _thrives_ under the light of it.

Polite applause makes its way around the foyer. Faces of those envious of Adrian’s station, proud of his success, or flustered by his handsome modesty all looking back at him. _At them_ — as though there’s not one without the other.

There’s a wordless understanding among the vampires to let the party resume. Gaius turns his head and presses a kiss to Adrian’s temple. Nadya desperately wants to look away, but if she does now she’ll miss what Gaius whispers in his ear.

“I have never been more proud of you, my boy. More than ever I am certain I made the proper choice. My darling Soldier, _my_ Adrian… you have proven yourself worthy of my old station.”

There’s a possessiveness to the arm that tightens around his progeny, and it’s too much for her. Makes her tear her eyes away from the sight and put everything into erasing the meaning of it from her mind.

Nadya squeezes her eyes shut until the party music fades away. _Blissful silence._

They open to a sight both familiar and not; a night she’s lived through two pairs of eyes and one she’s never seen before in her life. There’s a waxing moon shining bright and high over her head but Nadya’s seen the moon before. She’s never seen this many stars blanketed across the sky; dazzling, twinkling gemstones all eager for her attention. A tapestry in constant motion.

Nadya squeezes her hand joined with Adrian’s because _is he seeing this?_ but as soon as she tries the only thing she ends up with is a closed fist.

The stars aren’t why they’ve come here.

The overhead canopy rustles in the breeze; changing its song from the simplicity of the forest to the real reason _this memory_ exists. The tune of it carrying Nadya’s attention down, down and away from beautiful things to the man in his blood-drenched shirt and his audience, the one far too pressed and clean to be anything other than unnatural.

Cast in jarring shadows and slivers of moonlight, the blood pouring down Adrian’s mouth is an inky shade of black. He clutches the upper arms of a third man, body short and woefully limp, with locked against against his companion’s throat in the throes of a heated kiss — or something equally passionate. 

“Enough.”

One word in command but that’s all it takes for hands Nadya knows to have the potential for unbounded kindness, healing; _affection_ to release their grasp. The body _thwumps_ to the packed dirt between progeny and Maker nameless and forgotten. Leaves Adrian standing there, rogue strands of hair clinging damp to his temples and with his face turned upwards in a fashion not unlike unwavering worship. 

Gaius reaches to cup his new Soldier’s strong chin in both hands. Stained with so much blood Nadya can’t fathom how he was ever able to scrub it off. Seeped into the pores of his skin and when the elder vampire drags his thumbs over Adrian’s cheeks it smears in a seamless streak. Too shiny; too _wrong._

 _“Beautiful,”_ whispers Gaius; reverent in his own way. He roams his crystal eyes over every inch of Adrian’s blissed-out expression, then reaches around him to undo a tattered ribbon knot. His hair falls dark and uneven along his shoulders. Dirt still clings to matted locks. A sight that tells Nadya he’s only just emerged a new creature into an old world.

This is Adrian’s first night alive as a vampire. His first kill; first feed.

The first time he was ever taken into Gaius’ arms and given a purpose that — unbeknownst to the new man standing before her — he would spend a lifetime trying to make amends for.

“Tell me everything you feel.”

Adrian can’t deny his Maker, even if he wanted to. “It’s… so much. Never have I tasted the like.”

It’s exactly what Gaius wants to hear.

“It will only get better from here, my Soldier. I assure you that.”

They share matching grins; like mirror images of one another. It’s impossible for Nadya to see the Adrian she knows in this man but she _can_ see why someone like Vega would put them side by side and have nothing but similarities to list.

Nadya’s about to look away when, like he can sense her discomfort, Adrian tears away from Gaius’ natural hypnotism to level crimson eyes her way. In that instant the Soldier, the man Gaius made, vanishes — replaced by his future self. The kind man, the generous man; the man making up for all of these mistakes one day at a time.

She had no idea how much of a relief it would be to see.

“Nadya…”

Just like in Versailles. She’s just there to watch and learn but Adrian doesn’t get that choice. He has to both see it and live it all over again. He recoils from Gaius’ touch; the memory of the man lets his hands drop to his sides. Forgotten.

Adrian approaches her with human speed. All that blood dripping from him makes her recoil; just half a step back but it’s enough for any sort of confidence he might have to crumple. He stops, rigid; broken. Too far away.

“I never wanted you to see this. None of it… but this more than any other.”

She swallows down her fears. Reminds herself _this isn’t Adrian, not really._ “I can see why.”

“I don’t —” throwing a look back over his shoulder where Gaius stands frozen; like a movie on pause, “— I don’t remember everything about being Turned. I don’t even remember what felled me. I just remember waking up, choking on dirt… clawing my way back to the surface and…”

“There he was.”

Adrian nods.

“I’m ashamed to admit I followed along with his plans and vision for the nation right up until the end. It took me too long to start thinking for myself — to look beyond his praise and pride and think for myself. Even then, in the beginning I was sure I was wrong.

“If I hadn’t trusted Kamilah enough to confide in her how I felt…” every word is agony for him to speak, “I don’t think I would have been strong enough to do what needed to be done.”

He turns back towards Nadya but he can’t seem to look her in the eyes — so she doesn’t give him a choice. She crosses the divide and takes his hands in hers, bloody smears and all, and squeezes as hard as she can.

“This doesn’t change how I see you, okay? Hey, look at me.” She won’t continues until he does, but it’s shy; full of shame. “You think I didn’t figure there were skeletons in your closet? I’ve seen enough vampire movies to know there’s always a tragic backstory.” Thankfully that’s enough to get him to show _some_ emotion. Even if it’s a twist to his mouth and a crinkle in his nose.

“I don’t know about _tragic…”_

“This —” she throws a flippant hand back to Gaius, “— isn’t you. It was you, maybe, once upon a time. But once upon a time isn’t right here, right now. You’ve shown me the kind of man you are, Adrian Raines; a good friend, a man who keeps his promises, who would risk his life for his secretary without her even knowing it.

“You’re so worried I’ll see you for who you were but you know what I really see? I see how little Gaius has changed. How manipulative and cruel he was back then, over and over, and is still. And that’s why we’re going to stop him. That’s why he’s the bad guy and you’re the good one.”

Doubt, anxiety; the depression that comes with harboring terrible things — those are all emotions Nadya is familiar with as a plain old human. That’s why she knows she’s getting through to him when the tension eases from his expression; when he holds her hands just a little bit tighter.

“Change isn’t always a good thing. But it was for you, just like it was for Kamilah. Remember the terrible things even if they hurt more than you can stand. Remember them because they give you a reason to change for the better.”

There’s a long, still silence that follows and had Nadya worrying that it might not be enough. That she might not be enough.

 _Like I wasn’t for Kamilah,_ says a small, mean part of her, but she pushes it down because Adrian needs her as much as she needs him right now.

“Thank you,” he finally says; voice a hoarse whisper, “thank you for not seeing him in me.”

“I could never.” _That’s a lie. He doesn’t need to know that._

But it’s not what _Nadya_ sees that’s important… is it?

“But he did.” Adrian throws her a confused look, but he really needs to get on the epiphany train before he gets left behind. _“He did._ In every memory he kept comparing you to himself. The loyal soldier and his unwavering faith. That’s why he was so mad at you, remember?”

The forest starts to waver around them. Distant mountains melting like liquid, the sky dripping down to coat the ground.

“He made you into a version of himself. The version he was before he was a King, back when he was the Soldier.”

Adrian’s face slowly lights up in understanding.

“And he was the Soldier to the First.”

All around the world is changing. Trees stretching tall; wood hardening to stone. The chill of fresh air growing warm and stale in Nadya’s lungs. Stone branches arc over the sky and seal together in a high ceiling. Invisible hands carrying invisible brushes paint symbols and stories in vivid images along the walls.

When the memory is done forming around Nadya and Adrian they seem to be in a tomb of some kind. The same pressure of being underground as the Council Chamber rings high pitched in her ears. Instead of basins on the ground, sconces fashioned from stone bowls carry fire burning from an unfamiliar kind of wood. It makes the burned air taste sweet at the back of her throat.

Nadya squeezes Adrian’s hand; her breath hitches in surprise. “You’re still here.”

He nods, looking around the chamber. “This isn’t my memory. I’ve… never seen this place in my life.”

Behind them comes an all too familiar voice, pitched with a despair neither of them recognize. They’ve never heard him sound so… weak.

 _“You_ dare _mock Her?! Blasphemer! Traitor!_ Coward!”

Together they turn and take in the towering expanse of a bone-white tree. Their roaming eyes follow the trail of limbs spread wide coming together in the trunk, winding down to the roots. Where they find at its base Gaius, bright eyes in a burning rage as he condemns a young man Nadya feels like she should know, but can’t quite remember on her own.

And, watching over them, a dark and alluring face Nadya recognizes immediately. Beautiful and powerful and leaving her utterly breathless.

“Rheya.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter and the one following it were two of the hardest and most enjoyable to write. I really hope you enjoy them! As always, comments and critique are welcomed with open arms. Thank you so much!


	22. The Soldier

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He would do anything for Her. She is his Goddess, his Maker. And he is Her Soldier.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **content warnings:** language, violence, blood, wounds, death, emotional/psychological manipulation, manipulation by a romantic partner

He has done everything She has ever asked of him — everything but this. No matter Her insistence, or the pain that came from the disapproval She never voiced but he no less felt. And he was right. All these years… _he was right never to trust the former prince._  


“What madness is this, Xenocrates?”

“This is not _madness_ brother,” Xenocrates reaches out and clasps his hands over Gaius’ in an unfounded display; concern, imploring — a yearning to be heard and understood hidden for decades now finally free, “but the opposite. This is _sanity;_ and I gift it to you with all of my being. For _lifetimes_ we have stood by Her, duty-bound at Her side. But the rights and wrongs of the world are not made by _duty._

“They are not made by _Rheya.”_

Gaius pulls away in haste; already several long paces back before he even realizes his body has carried him as far as his emotions would demand. When given measure — even he finds himself surprised at the enormity of them.

“Wherever you intend to go with this—this _heresy_ of yours, Xenocrates, I would hear no more of it.”

They both hear it; the waver in his tone. They both see it; the hesitant flick of his eyes right to left to right again as though She will sense this new and vile emotion welling forth from him and swiftly descend to snuff it out.

For out of _any_ in Her kingdom, none should be more loyal than they. The First and Second Sons — the chosen lucky enough to be fashioned for eternity by the Goddess Rheya Herself. Yet there he stands, the prince of nothing, as if to defy the laws of Her Gracious Benevolence by simply existing.

But it seems Xenocrates has taken it upon himself to take a page out of Gaius’ own petulant book this night. He won’t back down. “I fear the time for ignorance has passed, even for you. Can you truly look me in the eyes and tell me you have never once questioned Her; even in the smallest of ways?”

“I would _never.” I understand the meaning of devotion._

Xenocrates shakes his head. “I do not believe you.”

“What _you believe_ is not my concern,” Gaius snaps in reply, “since it is with growing clarity that I wonder what you believe in at all. If not our Goddess, then what?”

_And why do I care?_ He doesn’t, Gaius reasons in his mind, and knows it to be true. But the very existence of this doubt unsettles him; not just as one devoted to Her, but as Her protector — Her soldier. If _Xenocrates_ of all people could be swayed to false beliefs…

The First Son turns his head slightly, his features cast in profile against the exposed ceiling and the moonlight filtering down unto the pair of brothers. Half to Gaius, half to the Tree.

“I wish I could give you the answer you seek Gaius, truly I do. But just as the world is painted in shades, so are the lines between right and wrong blurred at the edges. I believe, now, in many things. And have an equal lack of faith in everything I once thought to be certain.

“Rheya has brought upon the world a new power; a new dynasty. One that I once thought was the answer for all the problems that my father and those like him had created. But I can no longer lie. Not to you, not to Her… and not to myself.” Their kind — the immortal children of the Goddess Rheya — are as still as they are immutable. So to see Xenocrates’ lower lip trembling with the weight of his words is more than a surprise for Gaius. It is a new experience.

One he would rather have spent eternity ignorant of. “Were I you, _brother,”_ how he practically spits the word with the strangeness of this talk, “I would guard my tongue. Our Goddess has been nothing but generous from the moment She ascended. None else were blessed enough to share in Her gift as we were.”

A true politician; the true extent of his caution may as well be painted across Xenocrates’ face.

“Do you truly think this life to be a gift?”

Surprise; indignation; outrage flit across his face scarred long before he was destined to meet Her. “How can you ask such a thing?” Gaius’ voice cracks as he asks. _“Of course_ it is a gift! True and untapped _godhood_ flows through our veins!”

“At the cost of the veins of others.”

He scoffs. “A small price to never age; to never die. Incomparable to the promise She has given us to see Her kingdom through.”

“Her power is unquestionable, Gaius.”

“Finally, something out of your mouth that _doesn’t_ border blasphemy.”

“But that only ensures the threat of it is unquestionable too.”

Mortals have lived and died in lifetimes since the last time Gaius felt the bitter nip of winter winds or the choking heat of summer twilights. Yet here he stands with a shiver down his spine; sweat plastering his linen tunic damp down his back.

_No longer is this the time for careful warnings._

“The only ones _threatened_ by Her are those who would defy Her. The ones resistant to the future She will bring. And make no mistake, Xenocrates,” words lisping around extending fangs, “Her future _will_ be seen done. And at the hour of victory those _loyal to Her_ will not go unrewarded.”

The brothers in blood lock eyes. Holding one another’s gaze; determination to read the intentions of the other quickly mutating into something sickening; desperate. Xenocrates finally crumples under the pressure of it and turns his head away as if in pain. Proof all the more that Gaius, Her loyal soldier, follows the right path.

_“Loyalty_ cannot only be this,” the elder murmurs; but to their ears his voice rings crisp like theatre, “there must be ways to prove it other than mindless obedience and the willingness to slaughter Her enemies.”

“You would rather they _live?_ Only to strike us down another day?!”

“I would rather live a life without a dagger in hand waiting for the next zealot to catch me unawares!”

“Snuff out the dissenters and you won’t have to!”

Fists come to clench at his sides; then Xenocrates speaks clear and strong — not that conviction makes his words any less treacherous.

_“A kingdom forged of the blood and bones of all who would oppose you is the kingdom of a tyrant!”_

All around them, the world itself protests. Gusts of wind rage like rapids against the tomb’s old chambers, the seasons cower below their feet for safer times. Even the Tree of Eternal Life, as unyielding as its title suggests, seems to let its topmost branches sway in a ritual dance. A herald of dark times.

_After everything… this is where he stands. Spared by Her, respected by Her — all efforts made wasted._

“How easily you waste Her mercy,” spits Gaius finally; the bite of venom sharp on his fangs, “proof you were never worthy of it to begin with.”

Dark eyes widen, aghast. “You think what Rheya did to the world was merciful?”

“Compared to what was done unto Her… our Goddess was in every right to burn the world and raise Her kingdom from the ashes! But instead She offered the willing the chance to take part in a new age by Her side!”

“Surely you play at this naïvete! How many innocents have _you alone_ slaughtered in Her name, Gaius?!”

“I regret not counting _you_ among them! _Traitor!”_

Gaius lunges forward with a furious cry and an avenging fury. He swiftly pries his sword free from his hip and sends it down as merciless as their Goddess should have been to begin with; a fire in his eyes only made tame with the intent to kill. In Her name.

They have each served Her in their own way; Gaius with his strong and passionate hand and Xenocrates with his honeyed words — words Gaius now knows to be nothing but lies. But if it were as easy as the swing of a single sword they would be naught but a mockery to Her name; to Her blood.

Xenocrates’ hand is soft from his mortal life of luxury as it flies palm-up to stop the blade with brute strength. Something about the reminder of who they were, of how little they meant before She came into their lives and gave them Her gift, only hardens Gaius in his resolve. He presses all of his weight down his sword’s iron grip; tries to force the weaker metal through the bones of the traitor son’s hand through sheer force of will. But even as blood runs in thin rivers down the raised forearm only to fall in waste to the ground between them; the First Son proves himself deserving of the title.

Gaius gives a silent vow to strip him of it down to the bone.

“Gaius— _brother_ —please stop—It should not be this way!”

_No it should not._ “You stand in blatant defiance to our Goddess—and seek to tell _me_ how things should be?!” Every word louder than the last, every swing harder than the one before it. Blood red almost black under the moon seeping into the fabric of his _himation_ to mark him for his sins; for the crime of even so much as _thinking_ against Her.

Even before Gaius was made stronger than any blade forged by mortal man, he knew the pain of his own sword well. The former King had been a cruel and ambitious man — what he had done to Rheya was proof enough of that. But he had only demanded the best of his army; of those like Gaius who had nothing but the armor on their shoulders and the sword in their hands. How else was he to know the limits of the enemy when he did not know the limits of himself?

But no more; he had more than that now. He had his immortality, he had his Goddess; he had his faith in Her. Armor was no better than a costume compared to the strength of his natural hide. But there are worse things than death — his life as a soldier taught him _that,_ too. So Gaius knows when to slice shallow into his skin and when to pierce deep in muscle. Xenocrates will heal; in time.

Time enough to be punished by the one he _truly_ wronged. By Rheya Herself.

And until then Gaius continues, his false brother’s blood staining his bared teeth; in hot flecks on his cheeks and matting in his hair so affectionately touched by Her graceful hands. Because Xenocrates deserves it for everything he has said and for all the things left in the air between them. He is Her Soldier, and he will not let those words dare to be spoken.

“She gave you _everything!”_ He thrusts the word deep in the other man’s abdomen; twisting both edges of his sword while blood flows faster than any mortal could survive. A thin red stream trickles from Xenocrates’ lips; teeth stained red and grinding together to keep his composure.

This close, though, Gaius leaves himself exposed. Worth it now and a hundred times over to feel the crunch and yield of lower ribs cracking and insides shifting as Xenocrates is forced to hold every steel inch of the soldier’s hatred inside. 

_“Enough… of this… Augustine!”_ Scarlet eyes with pupils narrowed into slits snap up and meet Gaius’ head on. The very sight swells a new anger inside — which is exactly what the former prince wants. Distracted by the intensity of his own _everything,_ he unwittingly gives the First Son the sliver of a chance he needs to reach down and separate soldier from sword with a _snap._

He abandons the blade inside his enemy with a howl of pain. Staggering back, snarling through eyes blurry with tears while his free hand slowly begins to push the white shock of broken bone protruding from his forearm back where it belongs.

Xenocrates the wise; Xenocrates the advisor. Xenocrates with the pale hands that shake too violent for his bloody palms to pry the sword from his belly. The very sight is enough for Gaius to sneer in satisfaction; the only thing that gets him through the agony of his bones forcing themselves back together under muscle tissue. Like this they are on equal footing — until one takes in hand all those times that pompous human life kept him from enjoying the rich rewards of the hunt and kill.

The only thing their Goddess could not snuff out of him; his aversion to the hunger.

With one last pained noise the sword falls heavy to the ground at Xenocrates’ feet. Slick blood coaxing the dirt to cling to the blade from hilt to point as if he couldn’t sully the things Gaius holds sacred _enough._

He staggers; finds purchase against the closest stone column with such force it groans in protest and makes grit fall down from the ceiling mooring. But the sand is just another thing to cling to Xenocrates’ forehead, with his dark curls unkempt and temples shining with exertion. He is the enemy, and even the lowest rank of soldiers would see him and know he is defeated.

_So why does he not yield?!_

“Enoug—’gustine…” his words repeated choked and bloody, “just… _enough.”_

_“Indeed, my Prince. I believe I have seen…_ more _than enough.”_

Silent tears stream down Gaius cheeks. In Her presence his pain is given purpose. At Her touch he feels more than the strength to continue on — he feels the will to do so at Her guiding hand. And when Her Soldier cranes his neck far enough to snap, the sight of Her speaks volumes to him that he already knew.

_She is his Goddess, and She is worth it. All of it. Everything. Over and over again from now until the end of time._

The humble nature of his Goddess always leaves Gaius in awe. She emerged from the depths of the tombs reborn and renewed, and with Her bare feet leaving dusty prints on the former King’s polished floors in Her wake. Dust soon turned to blood; long sweeping trails of crimson that followed Her like a holy procession. Rheya took the sacrifices She was owed in abundance. As was Her right.

And even now; gliding forward with silent steps, the familiar bright white hem of Her gown coming into view. Before he can cast aside his doubts and pains for Her, She offers him an extended hand instead. Long fingers curled just so; coaxing him forward for Her — to Her.

Gaius takes Her hand in his and finds the will to stand. “My brave Soldier…” She croons, fingertips like silk tracing along patches of braised skin. In Her touch he feels it; the lifeblood thrumming in his veins, called to the surface of his flesh and compelled by Her to do the bidding of the Goddess. To heal him; to bring him back to Her side as swift as Zephyr himself.

She is all he sees. And he holds Her gaze for his own, selfishly taking everything She has to offer. He grasps Rheya’s upper arms as tight as he can and knows with some measure of claiming that She will never bruise. She’s too perfect.

The back of Rheya’s hand slides soft along the curves of Gaius’ jaw. Wordless, nameless nothings sweetly lilted on Her lips. “You fight with passion, Gaius. Strong, unyielding; unwavering. I could not ask for anything more.

“Ask it,” he rasps, “and I will give you everything and more.” His words bring a glint of satisfaction to Her eyes. He needs nothing more.

“I know you will.”

If only this moment could last forever. _If only._ But distant shuffling catches their ears and Gaius is forced to watch, forlorn, as his Goddess steels Herself to deal with the matter at hand. He turns his face towards Her touch in the breath before Her fingertips leave him; a tasteless kiss with pale lips before She is in a place he will never be able to reach — let alone understand.

Rheya crosses the central chamber of the tomb cool and calculating; watching Her First Son as though through the sheer curtain of a waterfall — distant; removed.

“Always a creature of dignity… my little Prince,” mockery blunt on Her tongue like a bludgeon, “but how far has it gotten you?” Her eyes trail up to the base of the Eternal Tree; how he falls just short of it. “Never far enough.”

Xenocrates looks between Rheya and Gaius. “You… followed me here?” And the thought amuses Her enough to let him live beyond that moment.

“From the moment you accepted my gift, Xenocrates, your blood became my blood. You are nothing more than a part of me that reaches beyond the limits of the flesh…” Even still, Her serenity is marred with even the slightest furrow of Her brow. 

“Yet here you are; a part of me… and not. How did you mask your will from my sight?”

For the first and only time that night, the man’s diplomatic persona slips. Baring a grimace of bloody teeth up at Her.

“No god is infallible. Not even you.”

“… We shall see.”

Rheya takes one step forward and, to his credit, Xenocrates manages to keep himself from recoiling violently. Eyes squeezed shut; awaiting Her retribution and wrath. But it doesn’t come.

Like a shadow over the moon Rheya passes him with little concern; Her focus drawn to the Eternal Tree towering over them all. Even from a distance Gaius can feel the power radiating from its petrified limbs — power that grows stronger the closer his Goddess gets. It calls out to Her — it yearns for Her. Power recognizing power.

She hovers a touch just shy of the tree trunk as if under a spell of Her own. “I knew from the moment I entrusted the knowledge of the Tree to you that eventually the temptation would be too much to resist. You are men, after all. And what are men if not weak in the presence of true and unbridled power?

“It was only a matter of understanding you enough to know who would succumb first.”

Rheya presses Her palm against the Tree. Bark biting into Her palm like the teasing nip of a lover. All the power coalescing around them comes together in that moment, in that touch; energy so thick they can taste it on their tongues sweet like rich blood and wine.

_“‘Who would it be,’_ I asked myself,” she continues, “my Soldier… or my Prince? The compassionate soul so desperate for my approval that he would seek to walk at my side rather than kneel before my throne? Or the young man once promised the world I had taken for mine own; no longer content with my benevolence when tempted with forbidden fruit?”

But even the sweet honey of Her voice is not enough to hide the bitter poison of Her words. Gaius staggers slightly, unseen at Her back. Pain crumpling his pride under Her heel.

“My Goddess —” choking on his own voice, “— I would never —”

Rheya silences him with a simple twitch of Her free hand. “I know, Gaius. You have proven yourself beyond mere fealty. As your faith carries you to my side, my faith carried me here — to the Tree. Everything had been ripped from me in one swift moment; my dignity, my identity, my personhood. But no matter how hard he tried, Kaelsius could never take away my belief in my gods. 

“And for my suffering I was rewarded beyond all others.” In a flash Her touch hardens; the open-palm caress digging nails against the skin of the Tree as a claim. “Me, and me alone.”

Echoing silence follows. Rheya’s back turned away from them; almost hunched over the Tree as though to let Her body shield it from the corruption of their eyes.

Then, Xenocrates laughs.

A wheezing thing; lungs not used in decades forced to awaken and work like nothing had changed since he was last mortal. He laughs through the struggle to remember _how,_ through the pain of his open wounds and the ones healing too slowly. He laughs until blood and spittle gurgle on his tongue and he only pauses to swallow it back down before it returns renewed.

The very sound reignites Gaius’ anger in a new wave of revulsion.

“You _dare_ mock Her?!” He snarls. “Blasphemer! Traitor. _Coward!”_ And a whole litany of other foul names — every one he can think of — but one look from Rheya and he forces them all down. For now.

She waits until Xenocrates has had his moment; unwavering in Her patience and stoicism. When the First Son finally deigns to waste his unworthy eyes upon Her, though, the toll of his amusement could not be more clear. His skin dulled with an ashen taint, the circles under his bloodshot eyes darker and more prominent. His words croaked through cracked and peeling lips.

“You think…” _—wheeze—_ “that I came here to curse myself twofold? That I want to _rival_ your wicked desires?”

The only outward sign she gives is the tightening of Her grip and the flecks of bark that pry free from the Tree’s surface. “To imbibe from the Tree of Eternal Life is to become my equal. A secret I have only shared between my blood; between the two of you. Why would you come here against my wishes — _against the will of Your Goddess_ — if not to use it against me?”

Even in his sickly state the look that brightens Xenocrates’ eyes is unmistakable.

_Pity._

“I did not come here to take part in your power,” Slowly and with visible effort he reaches around to pry something from the folds of his _himation._ Rheya’s foot shifts in an unconscious step back, but she remains otherwise unfazed.

“I came here to purge the world of its tyranny. _Your tyranny, Rheya.”_

Dread holds Gaius’ voice hostage in his throat — leaving him frozen with unfamiliar fear. Xenocrates pries the dagger free from his hip to hold it up and outward. The blade kisses the moonlight with a shine; dangerous to anyone else. But not the three immortals gathered here.

The sight makes amusement twitch at the corners of the First Vampire’s lips. “Even if such a pitiful needle could fell me… did you not consider that together the Eternal Tree and I, united, are made invulnerable?”

“I may be a fool,” scoffs Xenocrates, “but perhaps you have forgotten, _my Goddess,_ that I share your blood. Your powers are my powers, you hunger is my hunger. Suffice to believe our bond of blood goes both ways. 

“And that my weaknesses are yours.”

_A fool, indeed, with foolish notions._ Gaius watches, a victorious smirk alight on his face, and waits for Her to prove Xenocrates to be nothing more than the jealous, corrupted failure of a usurper that he is.

He waits.

And waits.

And is kept waiting.

Rheya does not answer.

Xenocrates finally rights himself on his own two feet. Stronger; empowered by his vindication — by the first and only victory he claims tonight. But one is all it takes.

Finally, she commands him; “Explain yourself,” she says, but there’s nothing _obedient_ about his answer.

“During the Siege of Solinthia, I was ambushed. The last of Aenos’ refugees — farmhands, laborers, children.” Dried blood flakes down his chin as Xenocrates’ upper lip curls in disgust; only at himself. “I was struck with the splintered end of a hoe, right here.” He touches the tip of his dagger to the flesh of his shoulder.

“The pain was unlike anything I could remember. But I did, eventually. It mirrored the day you returned from the depths of your banishment, _oh Goddess,_ and chose to enslave Gaius and myself for your amusement.”

_Enslave?!_ “You speak only for your own heresy! I would _never_ waste my Goddess’ gift!” But there is no use reasoning with heretics; infections that need to be burned out to be cleansed.

“It was the feeling of _dying,_ Rheya,” Xenocrates continues unhindered, “and in my state of weakness I did the only thing necessary to survive. But as I stood among their drained corpses I realized their deaths were not in vain. They were but sacrifices to the greater cause — to _your_ end.”

Rheya’s expressionless guard slowly melts; sympathy heavy with burden radiating from Her with an unfelt strength. She wordlessly crosses the divide between them and cups Xenocrates’ stubbled chin with slender hands.

“I could have lost you, my little Prince…” and Gaius has never seen Her like this; never heard a tremble in Her strong voice or seen the cracks in Her armor such as these — _never for him, but for_ that _traitorous, ungrateful…_ “How could you keep this from me?”

The two of them, that close to one another; there’s only one word to describe them and Gaius _hates it._ They look _tender_ together. At one another; sharp and clear edges of them bleeding together at the seams. He’s witnessed this sight and its close relations too many times to count — too many times for him to have any hope of carving it from his memories no matter how strong his convictions.

He’s seen it when his beautiful Goddess knows he’s there. And as many times in secret, dark places where he should not be… but where he cannot find it in himself _not_ to go. And is he not justified, now? Has Xenocrates’ heinous betrayal not meant _he,_ Her endlessly devoted Soldier, was the only one to truly care about Her?

_How dare she look at him that way after everything he’s done against Her!_

Only the truly villainous could be gifted those eyes… that smile… the intimacy of that reverent touch and just as easily cast it all aside for selfish gains! 

_Don’t give it to the unworthy. Find one who will never see anything but beauty, power; all that you are. Who will return it tenfold._

_Give it to me._

Gaius would beg, would weep on his knees in confession to Her if he could. Maybe not this night, but the next, or the one following. When Xenocrates has been denounced and suffered Her wrath and served as example for any who might seek to betray the boundless heart his Goddess carries in Her breast. When she can then realize… _see_ with wide, open eyes…

He is Her Soldier. And he can never be anything else.

Slowly, _agonizingly,_ Gaius watches the tension drain from the former prince’s form. How his shoulders ease and the dagger hangs limp in three fingers instead of a tightly closed fist. That is the power She wields; and it is a glorious sight.

On anyone else.

“I blame myself,” whispers Rheya; dragging one hand up along the curves of Xenocrates’ face up to wind Her fingers in dark damp curls, “you were suffering, my Prince, and I was blind to it. To be gifted this new life — to be freed from the chains of mortality — only to find them lurking just out of sight… and all on your own…”

Xenocrates allows Her to tilt his head closer. She kisses his forehead with a whisper of Her lips; all the affection of the night sky and its thousands of stars in that single act. His eyelids flutter shut, dark lashes dusting his cheeks.

“No world changes willingly, Xenocrates. Our every act has a higher calling. But in my ambition I failed to remind you of our grander purpose; our immortal future… it is no surprise you lost your way.

_“I forgive you, my love._ And grant you pardon to find your way back to me.”

The first sign of trembling shoulders nearly sends Gaius launching forward, ready to take the dagger into his own body as many times as needed to spare Rheya any more of the pain of betrayal. But trembles become shakes, become the heaving ragged sounds of weeping. Somber, deep; befitting of the tomb around them.

The dagger falls lamely to the ground. His hands freed, Xenocrates grasps Her upper arms, clings so tight with his preternatural strength that he threatens to deform the ornate golden cuff around Her skin. She is a benevolent Goddess — she coaxes him closer with soft whispers of _“sssh, my darling, all will be well…”_ through his pain to rest his head against Her collarbone.

Gaius barely realizes he has taken several steps closer to them when Rheya meets his eyes across the chamber. She gives him the slightest, barely perceptible shake of Her head; too slight for the First Son to notice. But even at a distance he recognizes the darkness bubbling beneath Her eternal beauty and youth. The same kind of ruthlessness here and now; Gaius has been witness to it while dutifully at Her side — watching in reverence as she strikes down Her enemies where they stand.

He has never seen Her look more beautiful than in this moment. So exquisite, so ethereal that he wants to make for the dagger and carve out his heart in offering to Her. She is a divinity that deserves an offering of blood — not tears.

“So much death and suffering…” Xenocrates reminds them both of his presence; the deep baritone of his voice warbling with grief, “and violence, and pain, and tragedy. My father’s crown was forged in unjust violence and—and I _swore,_ Rheya, I _vowed on my life_ I would right his wrongs no matter the cost.”

Her long fingers comb through the matted knots in his curls. “We will, we _have.”_

“I am stained with innocent blood. I cannot wash it from my soul.”

“Necessary sacrifices,” another kiss to his forehead, “all of them for a future without death, without suffering and tragedy and evil.”

“A world without evil…”

“One we will build — all of us — together.”

With the heaviest parts of his anguish passed, Xenocrates steadily pulls back from Rheya’s embrace to take in Her face unhindered. Dirt-smudged fingers brush aside a strand of dark, silken hair to tuck it behind Her ear.

“I see that now.” He agrees with a newfound surety. A sound that brings a rare but very real smile to Rheya’s face.

“I see a world of peace, of atonement. One without the evils that we have known… and without those we have created.”

“Necessary sacrifices,” she repeats; and flickers Gaius a confident look over Xenocrates’ shoulder.

He nods once. Agreement, complacency, apology — all the things Rheya demands of them and more given freely. Sealed as a promise with a chaste kiss to Her lips.

“In one way or another you have always shown me the right path, Rheya. From the moment we met… I knew you would help me understand. I was so lost, but I’ve finally found myself — with you.”

A strange look passes over Her. Curiosity and bemusement; things full of poetry and philosophy and other things she seeks Xenocrates’ learned company for. Things Gaius will one day force himself to understand. But only when he has seen Her world come to life; the trusted blade in Her hand no matter the enemy.

“I’m so glad you understand.”

Rheya’s head tilts to the side. She shifts with a discomfort Gaius can’t quite source from far away. “And what is it I understand?”

He’s too far away.

By the time he sees the white knuckled grip he has on Her for what it truly is, that is the only thing left in the world that he knows with every fiber of his being.

_He’s too far away._

“Necessary sacrifices.”

Wisps of Her hair brush against his fingertips lighter than air. His hand outstretched, straining with every muscle; the last wounds from their earlier fight tearing open fresh and red and new from the effort. None of that matters. Tear off his limbs if they slow him down. Rip him in two if it means he moves twice as fast. Either way — Gaius gives everything to reach Her in time.

His everything just isn’t enough.

The branch blooms from the center of Her chest in crimson and ivory. He doesn’t realize his mouth is open in a silent scream until he tastes Her on his tongue — flecks of blood warm tasting rich on the tip of his tongue. Fate mocks him cruelly by stabbing the center of his palm with the tip that impales Her — mocking him. _So close, little Soldier. But not close enough._

The wave of power that surges out from the Eternal Tree is a deafening roar. It sweeps Xenocrates off his feet and sends him flying through the tomb. He collides with the farthest wall with a _crunch,_ his body falling to the ground limp and unconscious. It tries to take Gaius, too. But he uses his wound; clings to the pain like an anchor in a maelstrom and refuses to let it take Her from him.

Then as suddenly as it started, the energy stops. Gone, no trace; as though it never happened at all.

But it did. Her glassy eyes, blood dripping from Her soft lips, the strength of the gods worth nothing where Her arms hang limp at Her sides is all proof enough of that.

Even with the pain ringing in his ears, Gaius can hear the word as it tears itself from his throat.

_“RHEYA!”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two in one day again? Yes, yes I did. Because this was probably one of my favorite chapters to get really _out there_ with so I was too eager to wait until next week. Enjoy, and as always comments and critique would be amazing.


	23. The Retribution

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They did it. Nadya really couldn't have done it without Adrian's help... but now he must face a hard truth that threatens to upend everything he thought he knew about himself. Meanwhile, Jax enlists Cadence's historian skills in learning more about the mysterious Order of the Dawn.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **content warnings:** language, mentions of death, blood, trauma, discussions of emotional abuse; gaslighting; trauma; toxic relationship, self-inflicted wounds (minor), wounds consistent with canon, grief

That’s the problem with memories.  


People only remember what they _want_ to remember, _how_ they want to remember it. The whole and untainted truth doesn’t exist for her. It never will. She can only see, and learn, and decide for herself where the lines get blurry.

Not that anything is _blurry_ when it comes to Gaius. Well… not in terms of her resolve. Nothing Nadya has seen would even scrape the bottom of the Bare Minimum Things That Might Explain Gaius’ Horribleness barrel. Nothing she felt — _feels in the present, is feeling still_ — could even hope to justify his actions; why he is the way he is.

 _She_ is. _She_ is why he is the way he is.

And Nadya pities him for it, really she does. But that doesn’t make any of the horrible things he’s done in nearly three thousand years of living even remotely okay. Not what he did to Kamilah or Adrian, not how he orchestrated Lily’s death or Nadya’s own suffering, and definitely not his master plan for vampire world-domination. That’s not how blame works.

As an emotionally mature (ish) person, Nadya is very much aware of these things. They don’t water down her anger or make her heart bleed for him. Because she still _is_ him, in a way, and she knows with the utmost certainty that he would gladly make her bleed for nothing more than his own amusement. If he knew she had seen him so broken, so vulnerable, it would probably be even worse.

But… _she still is him._

And her grief is so raw and powerful that the entire crypt city could come crashing down on her head and she’d welcome the unconsciousness as a release from _feeling._

Hey, though — on the bright side they have their answer. It’s a vague piece of nonsense that only offers more questions than answers but it’s something. And something is better than nothing. _Something_ means the pain like a hand crushing her windpipe is worth it in the end.

“Here we go, Nadi’.”

Lily’s hand moves from her back up to her shoulder, coaxing Nadya to open her eyes just in time for the steaming bowl of canned beans to come into her teary-eyed view. _Yay… her favorite._ But really though, she manages enough effort to lift her head a little bit higher where Cadence takes his seat back up on the other side of the table. Their eyes meet; he accepts her silent thanks with a tight-lipped smile.

“Please get something in your stomach?”

Something about Lily’s tone makes her laugh. Laughter is good; laughter is _amazing,_ actually. Laughter without malice or spite or something else bitter at the back of her throat is a medicine Nadya didn’t know she needed.

She looks back to Lily beside her and rests her head on a boney shoulder. “Don’t look at me like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like I’m cracked-up wacky. You just sound like you’re one step away from trying to spoon-feed me.”

There’s a huff of indignation above her that tickles the crown of her head. “Well you sound one step away from cracked-up wacky,” Lily argues; and Nadya doesn’t have to see her face to hear her smile, “so we’re even. Now seriously — eat. You upchucked nothing but stomach acid back there.”

On Lily’s other side, Jax looks up from his research with a disgusted grimace. “Seriously?” But of course he’s met with dual looks of no-regrets, so it’s a short-lived disgust.

It’s hard to tell how much time passes after that. There’s no clock obviously, and the moment Nadya realizes Cadence is wearing a watch is the same one she stops caring about things as useless as _time,_ anyway. There’s just this — here and now. The brickwork kitchen (though why vampires needed a kitchen is still lost on her) and all its cobwebs and in the middle Nadya and her muffled bean-chewing, the occasional turn or shuffle of pages from Cadence and Jax, and the chipping away of wood as Lily defaces the antique tabletop with lazily-carved butts.

It’s not the cacophony of innocents pleading for their lives. It’s not the burning of bloodlust in the back of her throat, or the darkness buried down deep in her gut that demands corpses as tribute. And that’s the best part. She even ends up enjoying the beans more… even though she’s starting to forget what other food even tasted like.

If only they could stay in this ignorant, timeless bubble forever.

Finally, Lily decides to break the silence. “So what are you looking for, anyway?”

“Nothing in particular,” answers Cadence without so much as a hesitation of his pencil, “but this collection was all grouped together at the back of the library. They all seem to be accounts of the Order of the Dawn’s movements pre-Plague.”

Lily’s eyebrows raise. “The Order is that old?”

“Older.” Jax slams his tome shut. “Different names, different titles — the same mission. I respect their tunnel vision but they’re like a damn infestation. Each time someone thinks they’ve dealt a blow, the Order just shows back up a decade or two later like nothing happened.”

That… doesn’t bode well. “How many times?” asks Nadya around her mouthful.

There’s a brief pause while Cadence ticks down his list. “Before the purge that sealed this place up, I want to say fifteen at the least. But I’ve noticed a pattern — many of the conflicts before the turn of the millennium are secondhand accounts.”

Lily shrugs. “Makes sense. Serafine said not a ton of vamps lived that old back then. What’s special about that?”

“They’re all accounts of the same man.” He snatches a book near the bottom of the closest pile and quickly flips to a page tabbed with soot on the corners. Nadya and Lily peer in close as he turns with a finger on a passage near the bottom.

“The Order—or the Knights, or whatever you want to call them—frequently fell into conflict with someone only named _‘The Dawnslayer.’_ Now it might be a title handed down from champion to champion, but I don’t think that’s the case here. I think it’s one man, and he kept seeking them out.”

Jax crinkles his nose. “What kinda suicidal moron vampire _seeks out_ vampire hunters?”

“Answered that one yourself, bud.” Lily replies with a smirk; and gets a roll of his eyes in return. 

But something about the mention of millennium has the gears turning in Nadya’s brain. Has her pushing up her glasses and scanning the page for a key word.

“Is there any mention of the Trinity in here?”

When there’s no immediate answer she looks up and only then, when it’s too late, realizes her mistake.

Cadence closes his mouth so hard his teeth _click_ together. She can see the muscles in his jaw ripple with tension, even across the old table.

“No.” And though she doesn’t believe that for even a second, the look in his eyes tells Nadya all she needs to know — that his answer won’t change no matter how many times she asks.

She could kiss Lily for swooping in and saving her from an awkward silence. “So are you guys working on a documentary or…?”

She looks at Cadence as she says it; makes sense, right? The historian getting knee-deep in vampire history. But, like he was expecting that very thing, he shakes the blond hair from his eyes and points the tip of his pencil at Jax.

“Don’t look at me. It was his idea.”

Jax shrugs off their surprise. “Hey, I’m a fan of knowing my enemy. Nothing wrong with that.”

Not that anyone sitting at the table is going to argue. That’s what they’re here to do, right? _Know thy enemy._ And Jax is actually doing them a favor; keeping his eye on the big picture. Because Gaius isn’t their only enemy, not by a long shot. He’s just the one capable of doing the most damage.

Now with an empty bowl and a fully stomach, Nadya tap—tap—taps the end of the spoon against her bottom lip.

_Time to stop avoiding it._

“Where did Adrian go?”

Gaius’ final cry rings in her ears. 

_“_ _RHEYA!”_

Desperate, hollow, fading but never quite leaving her mind. But not even the shock of Xenocrates’ actions could beat the stinging pain Nadya had felt when she opened her eyes to an empty chair.

Lily had promised to tell her; once she caught her breath, once she stopped emptying her stomach onto the antique carpet, once she had something to eat. Nadya had done everything asked of her and since no one was running around the manor panicking and screaming his name he _had_ to be okay, right?

_Right?_

Lily can’t quite look her in the face. Because _that’s_ reassuring, obviously.

“He, uh, came out of whatever trance you two were in first. Checked if you were okay first, still breathing and everything, then said he needed to clear his head — alone,” but of course that’s not the whole story and Nadya knows it, “I dunno what else to tell you. He seemed spooked, but I wasn’t gonna leave you on your own.”

Which Nadya _is_ grateful for, no doubt. She slips an arm around Lily’s waist and when they squeeze each other their chairs _screech_ when they come together. But not even old shabby wood can keep the pair of them from being joined at the hip when they want. “Thank you. You’re kinda the best.”

“Tell me something I don’t know.”

 _Well, since you asked…_ “Okay, I saw the night Adrian was Turned.”

Cadence’s head snaps up in front of them; as subtle as a neon yellow truck. Jax is much more reserved about it — but he still shifts in his chair whether he pretends to flip to the next page or not. He’s listening just as intently.

Not like Nadya plans on airing his dirty laundry or anything. But Lily definitely wasn’t expecting it. “Was it super embarrassing or something?”

“No… actually we talked it out. The whole _feelings_ part of it, I mean.”

“When?”

“Uh… inside the memory, actually.” It wasn’t Nadya’s first time doing so but saying it is still a little jarring. Not just how weird she must sound out of context… but how easy the skill had become. She’s come a long way from the first bloody nose it brought on. “But that’s what I mean — we talked about it. I wouldn’t have been able to find the connection to Gaius’ memories without him. So why did he…”

_Why did he leave me?_

Cadence closes his tome slowly. “Go on. What was it?” The quizzical look she throws his way makes the tall vampire sigh. “Adrian and Gaius; what was the connection that bridged the divide?”

Nadya doesn’t have to think about her answer at all — but she still stops herself from saying it by biting down on the tip of her tongue. That’s not her story to tell.

The guilt might as well be tattooed across her face. Leaning back in his chair, Cadence crosses his arms over his chest and gives a firm nod. “Sometimes I don’t envy the lot of you. Is it worse to know absolutely nothing about yourself; or to know, and forget, only to be blindsided by it after temporary ignorance?”

Because she totally has an answer to that? Not. He shrugs it off as rhetorical though — and literally.

“You want to know where he went… my guess would be somewhere he can confront the source.” And since they’re definitely nowhere near close enough to the surface for Adrian to make a run for it, the narrows down the list considerably.

Now would be the good time to have a map on hand, in pocket, heck — she’ll even take a little circle with a marker in the corner of the screen. Not that they have any of those things.

They do have Serafine, though.

Or… theoretically they do. They _did._ But when Nadya and Lily return to the library to find her all they end up with is a healthy dose of déjà vu. 

It’s like being back in the kitchen with the boys and their strange group book report. Stacks of old leather-bound books piled higher than Nadya herself on top of the long center table and half a dozen more laying spread open; pages yellowed with age held secure with (probably) priceless trinkets reduced to mere paperweights.

“I feel like I missed the assignment and tomorrow’s the due date…” she mutters, mostly to herself, but it gives Lily a good chuckle.

Years of being practically tied to her cozy chair and forced to watch Lily’s favorite movies (the things she’ll do for love…) mean Nadya prepares herself for a jump scare around the temporary wall of historical volumes. But when she whips around and sees nothing — and after realizing what was she gonna do, scream at the potential scary thing — it only puts her closer to the proverbial edge.

“Wonder where she went…” It’s a vast library. Searching every aisle will take time that Adrian might not have.

_Stop being the party pooper, Nadya._

“Hey,” Lily takes her out of her own head with a wave for Nadya to join her, “check these out.”

Nadya does; smooths her palm flat over one of the thick pages and lets her eyes roam. The researcher in her immediately tries to find key words. Small problem, though.

“Yeah — Lil’, I can’t read French. And last I checked neither can you.” Which Lily doesn’t deign with a reply; not even a little half-eye roll.

“Tell me you can’t pick out a few words here and there. I’ll still call you a liar.”

So she pushes her glasses back up until the nose pieces pinch hard into her skin — and tries again.

With Adrian off not even god knows where and Nadya not up for dealing with Serafine’s particular brand of _push it to the limit,_ not much had been said before Lily was successfully able to spirit her away for a rest. And not just because of that either — every other word, every breath in between Nadya was left uncertain who she would sound like when it finally came out of her.

Now she remembers what little _had_ managed to spill out. Memories, feelings, _certainties_ all with odd ends; parts of starkly different puzzles and all of them inside pieces without a corner in sight.

_Xenocrates. Bone-white. Aenos. Pierced-in-the-heart._

_Necessary sacrifices._

Lo and behold, Nadya makes a mental note to buy Lily as many silly touristy keychains as her undead heart desires when they get back up there. Aenos is a weird word both in English _and_ French and most definitely on the open page Serafine had left abandoned. With the tip of her nail Nadya traces over each letter in the word… Tries to use it like a connection all its own. And when that doesn’t work there are dozens of other books to choose from.

_HWUMP._

A giant (like _giant_ -giant, like the size of Nadya’s head and then some giant) urn finds itself a new home among the rest of the chaos of relics — one second longer and she isn’t sure she’d have all her fingers attached safely.

She smacks her hand over her mouth too little too late — lucky for her Lily’s heard her mousy little scream more times than Nadya can count offhand and Serafine — well she’s too engrossed in her prize find to care about something as trivial as that.

“When did you return —” wildness of her hair whipping back and forth, Serafine keeps talking without so much as a chance for them to answer, “— have you found Adrian? Finally, a breakthrough—after everything insofar… but I need the pair of you to confirm a few theories for me.”

Any other questions or exclamations after that are way beyond Nadya’s French speaking level.

She and Lily lock eyes over the vampiress’ dragon horde of information. They exchange similarly concerned frowns; but Serafine couldn’t be less aware if she tried.

“Did you get that from him, or did he get that from you?” asks Lily, cocking her head to the side. Vague though she is it doesn’t drag the woman’s attention from a thin journal-looking book she grabs from the bottom of a stack.

“Speak plainer, _petit.”_

“You look like a hummingbird on crack.”

 _Don’t laugh, Nadya, not the time… don’t laugh…_ “What she means is — Adrian’s usually like this when he has a breakthrough, too. So I’m hoping this —” she gestures to the shapely figure standing beside her, “— means good news.”

Her caramel eyes are alight with an interest bordering on fixation; flicking from page to page definitely much faster than Nadya can read — even on a good day. She devours them, chews them up and spits them out, and if the furrow deepening in her brow is anything to go by nothing Serafine is taking in is information she _needs._

 _“Pah!”_ Snapping it shut with one hand, fingertips tapping along the rigid spines of a cluster of books all bound the same way with the other. _“Ce livre est inutile!”_

Whatever she’s looking for, Serafine doesn’t find it there. The search grinds to a halt and literally forces her to a grinding halt. She stands back up straighter, more like herself, and only then realizes she’s no longer in this alone.

Genuinely, this time, based on the surprise in her voice. “Nadya, Lily… I did not hear you return.”

Nadya clears her throat awkwardly. “You said that already.”

“Did I?” Serafine slowly, briefly brushes her fingertips along her lower lip. “Then _pardonnez-moi, les filles._ I seem to have swept myself up in all of… this.” The word sounds sour on the tip of her tongue. For a woman so accustomed to sweet-tasting words she’s only had them few and far between lately, Nadya notices.

She slowly eases herself into one of the velvet-cushioned chairs at Nadya’s side. Easing herself off her feet with a soft little noise, then arching her back in a feline stretch.

“You’ve recovered well enough, I hope?” The Frenchwoman finally asks, and looks to Nadya with that same familiar concern from their initial training sessions; like she’s willing to put it all on hold for Nadya’s sake and comfort.

She didn’t know just how much she missed it until right now, actually.

But there’s no way to give both an honest answer and one that will assuage some of the woman’s guilt, so Nadya just offers a noncommittal shrug and averts her eyes.

Serafine, thankfully, understands. “I see. And Adrian…?” But she answers her own question before even finishing it. All it takes is one quick glance and a tingle of those supernaturally-charged senses to know they’re short one distraught vampire.

With a long, drawn-out groan of dismay Serafine buries her face in her hands; words so muffled both Nadya and Lily need to lean in to hear her properly. “I should have gone after him…”

Nadya worries at her bottom lip between her teeth. “From what Lily said… maybe it’s best that you didn’t.”

 _Back me up here,_ she pleads wordlessly, instead swinging a light kick under the table at Lily’s shin.

“He looked pretty messed up.” _Not helping_ — so she backtracks; “Like… in the need-to-be-alone kinda way. Reliving stuff like that is probably traumatic as fuck.”

“Exactly.”

Whether she believes them or not, it’s obvious from the mustered smile that Serafine is grateful for their attempt regardless. “I appreciate your efforts. It would be easy, perhaps, to say I have an inkling as to what he might be going through in this moment… but it is much more than that. I know all too well the pain that accompanies a haunted past.”

 _Maybe that’s why you two work,_ but Nadya doesn’t say it out loud. Not like the thought is a bad one to have or anything, she just… actually she doesn’t quite know why it stays safe and silent in her head. She just has a gut feeling that’s where it belongs. For now, anyway — while things are still raw and fragile; Adrian dealing with all this pain that ran much deeper than Nadya thought she knew and Serafine—well she…

_She’s…_

Nadya’s grateful that Serafine’s personal inner turmoil keeps her head down; giving her time to quickly school her expression away from the startled shock that pulls out of her without permission.

Nothing adds up — and everything comes together at the same time. Nothing is ever easy, and something is very very wrong. _Nothing is ever easy._ But Serafine is. The projection of her mind is, anyway. All swept and tidied and presented in shiny paper with a pretty psychic bow on top. The prayers for the dead, the way she wept at the sight of the home she thought had been lost forever; it’s all _gone._

More than gone. It’s like it never existed in the first place.

So Serafine is hiding something from her. Something that’s just happened that she doesn’t want Nadya to worry about… or maybe it’s been there all along, but now Serafine knows many of the things she’s capable of now and could be in the future, you know, Bloodkeeper-wise. None of this changing the fact that Nadya has a bitter taste in her mouth about it.

“I can’t even imagine…” she finally responds; because that’s the polite and ordinary kind of thing she’s supposed to say, and reaches out almost absently to put her hand atop Serafine’s. Too slow though; the woman yanks it away before she could so much as tap a nail on a knuckle. Leaving her hand to just sort of _slump_ in the space left behind.

She doesn’t give Nadya time to question it, either. “But it means I also know how hard Adrian will take it if his pain was for naught. So whether we find him or he returns to us — let us make sure we have good news to tell him, yes?”

With that she stands and carefully — as though it might crumble to powder under her touch — brings the urn closer to their side of the table. “I knew what it was the moment you compared the Tree to bone. It is an old tale; but I am an old woman.”

Serafine twists the vessel to bring a painted image into full view. Nadya’s breath hitches in her chest. Not just at the exquisite detail and beauty of it, but because she recognizes the subjects instantly.

The dark figure of Rheya in brilliant white; Her arms wide open; in offering. Gaius and Xenocrates kneel on either side. Their heads are bowed in reverence to their Goddess. But the real kicker is the background. At first Nadya writes it off as nothing more than an embellishment; something to fill the gaps between limbs that looks something like lightning against the clay sky. But lighting doesn’t strike from the ground up. Those are branches, the Tree of Eternal Life reaching out with spindly limbs to stretch its fingers across the world.

There’s a _knowing_ in Serafine’s eyes when Nadya finally tears her gaze away. The First Vampire’s eyes couldn’t be more than little drops of red paint but they’re almost hypnotic in how they make it so hard to look away.

“The Eternal Tree has always been a part of the First Vampire’s myth. It was a tale spread by Gaius himself; how the First was chosen above all others to receive the Tree’s gifts of immortality and invulnerability. And how she used them to ascend from the shadows of a world divided by greed and war to seek a better future — a world devoid of the pain of loss and illness only She could guide us to.”

“Vampires Only: World Edition.” Lily comments idly, scratching the tip of her nail against a streak of white that must be the limbs of the Tree at Rheya’s back. The paint flecks off and sticks to the tip of her finger, and she isn’t lucky enough to shake it off before Serafine throws her a punishing glare.

“Well I can confirm it isn’t a myth,” on the contrary Nadya can hear the echoes of the memory now, trying to return to her mind like the tide, “Rheya called the Tree the source of Her power; that it _chose her,_ somehow. That’s why she made sure it was hidden away, and that’s why Xenocrates went there that night. He probably planned on destroying it.”

Serafine’s earrings jingle softly as the woman shakes her head. _“Non,_ if the Tree truly exists then it would be as immortal as its children.”

“But you’re not immortal, not really. Neither was Rheya.”

She can still feel the blood blossoming through the fabric of her dress. Thick and wet under her hands— _the traitor the coward the lover’s hands_ —and the hollow, lifeless stare in her eyes once so very bright.

“He impaled her on a branch. Right through the chest. Then there was this powerful force, like something I’ve never…” Nadya’s voice trails off quietly; her train of thought so derailed the tracks aren’t even visible, “Actually — I _have_ felt that kind of power before. When Gaius drank the vial in the Chamber.”

Lily shudders at the memory. “When his eyes literally caught fire and he started flying, you mean.”

“When he ascended.”

All terrible things to behold; things she’d rather forget but knows she can’t. And not just because she and Serafine never got to that lesson in her curriculum. Here Nadya and Lily are, remembering one of the most traumatic things they’ve (somehow) lived through yet, and Serafine is… smiling.

“We have our answer.”

Step One: find the Tree.

Step Two: get to the tree, borrow a branch.

Step Three: fly home with branch-stake.

Step Four: kick Gaius’ butt — and stake him too.

This is officially Nadya’s favorite to-do list ever.

* * *

It takes some heavy convincing, but when Nadya finally finds Adrian she does so alone.

“You shouldn’t be here.”

He doesn’t turn around as he says it. Just keeps his back to her; keeps staring around the opulent room — still regal even with ages of dust like a bad pictagram filter over every surface but them.

“I mean if you wanna get technical about it, yeah. But that means _you_ shouldn’t be here either.”

Something twitches in his shoulders. Like he’s going to turn around… but changes his mind. Keeps him standing firm and resolute and _infuriatingly_ away from her.

She doesn’t have to ask who this room belonged to. You don’t have to be a Bloodkeeper to know, either. The entire Manor is beautiful but this place makes every fancy room they’ve been taking power naps in look like a collection of barely-furnished jail cells.

And that’s _without_ taking note of the giant, near-perfectly preserved portrait of Gaius himself over the mantle.

Nadya’s focus stays solely on Adrian for both of their sakes. She doesn’t want to stare too long into those icy blue eyes and start feeling less like herself again. _She only just got herself back._

“We figured it out, you know,” barely one step forward and the floorboards creak under her weight, “we know how to kill Gaius.”

“The Tree.”

Nadya hesitates. “…Yeah. How did you —”

“I was there, remember? I can connect the dots.”

_Yeah, okay. But you don’t need to sound so bitter about it._

“Gotcha.”

The chimney of the fireplace here must go all the way up and out to the spacious cavern around them. It’s the first time since they arrived that Nadya’s felt the familiar nip of _wind_ blowing through the stone. It rustles some of the tassels over the four-poster bed. With no moths this far beneath the surface the fabric is kept whole. Take away the dust and its like no time has passed at all.

Nadya wraps her arms around herself to fight off the chill around her. Not just from the elements, either. But she’d be lying if she said she’s not seen this side of Adrian before. She’d just fooled herself into thinking they had left him behind in New York.

“Adrian.”

“Yes, Nadya?”

“What are we doing here?”

His shoulders shift; almost imperceptibly. But she knows him. She _knows him_ in ways no one else does. She sees it. He knows she does.

“I was there,” he repeats instead; throwing Nadya for a loop, “I saw him… I saw how he felt about Her. What he was willing to do for Her.”

She takes another squeaky step forward. It hurts in indescribable ways to watch him do the same — to watch him keep a distance between them.

“It was like looking in a mirror.”

Nadya’s brow furrows slightly. “We talked about this. You’re not —”

“No, not _this —”_ his interruption cutting the air between them to ribbons, “— there’s no way we could have talked about this. I didn’t even know the _extent_ of—of _this_ until…”

The weight of Adrian’s words are too much for him. They make him stagger. He reaches out to steady himself and grasps the nearest bedpost with a white-knuckled grip. It yields without resistance and splinters; chunks of old lacquered wood falling to the fur-throw carpet. He hisses in pain; pulls back his hand and Nadya can see the pieces lodged in his palm — skin turning an angry shade of red.

But instead of pulling them out he just… stares. No matter how much he’ll argue — and he’ll argue all right — Nadya knows exactly what kinds of thoughts are running through his mind right now. She knows the allure of letting the pain keep both feet on solid ground.

Another step. Another squeak. Nadya’s voice wavers against her own wishes. “I can’t help you if you won’t let me.”

“What’s to help?”

“Well your hand, for one.”

“I’ll live.” _I’ll always live;_ the part that flits between them unspoken.

“Who are you,” she jibes, “and what have you done with Adrian Raines?”

 _Wrong thing to say._ She regrets it the moment it comes out of her mouth.

“Don’t you get it?” Finally, achingly, he rounds on her. Slow and purposeful with a little too much of the Gaius-flair for Nadya to be entirely comfortable with it. She just has no idea if that’s all in her head or if he’d doing it on purpose.

She takes him in fully; red-rimmed eyes and deep-set frown and how _broken_ he looks in this darkness. Not just the darkness of the room but whatever bits and pieces of it Gaius shoved inside him a long time ago… so deep Adrian didn’t even know he hadn’t pulled them out.

His words bitten out through clenched fangs.

_“I am what he made me.”_

Nadya swallows down her fear — a bit of her pride, too — and uses it to step forward again. “And what is that?”

“You know exactly what.”

“I’m having a blonde moment.”

 _“Nadya…”_ His voice is a growl of warning. Probably meant to make her back down. But the thought doesn’t even occur to her, not once.

 _Not when they finally have the chance to hash this out._ This angry thing—blackness, disease, _rot_ —that’s been festering inside of him ever since he first admitted to her that he regretted leaving Gaius alive. And she’s tried to get him to open up; to _help him through this like friends do._ Only to be met with rejection after rejection after faked smile and reassurance and more rejection. Well there’s nowhere else for him to rush off to, now. If he wants to leave here without talking he’ll have to push through her to do it.

_And he wouldn’t._

So she takes the leap for him. Rushes forward in dust kicked up into the air and into her lungs and spreads her palms flat on his stupid broad chest and _shoves_ with all her might!

“Tell me!”

Of course Adrian doesn’t budge. “Stop it.”

 _Make me._ “Tell me!” She shoves again; harder. Definitely hurts herself more than him but it feels _really good_ to let it out for some reason.

“Nadya, I’m warning you —”

_“TELL ME!”_

“HE MADE ME INTO HIMSELF!”

Nadya ducks just in time to avoid Adrian’s arm as he swings it in a wide arc. Aimless, unfettered rage burns in his eyes. There’s a _CRACK_ and the other bedpost keels over to clatter to the ground on the far side of the bed. The velvet overhang crumples onto Gaius’ old bed; tassels splaying long emerald fingers outward on the floor at her feet.

 _That could have been me,_ some part of Nadya says; while the rest of her is rational enough to know it never would have been. Adrian would never do that to her.

But maybe the man held at the tips of her fingers isn’t… quite _her_ Adrian.

Seething, clenched teeth; his entire body vibrating with things he doesn’t think anyone understands. Remorse barely echoes in his eyes — like a ghost — before the somber brown yields to bright crimson anger and cat-like slits that don’t look at Nadya, but _through_ her.

She steps back just in time.

There’s a wooden trunk at the foot of the bed — and then there’s isn’t. Adrian hurls it at the far wall where it smashes into chunks and pieces; the contents spilling out in masses of fabric and metal that falls to the floor _clunk-clunk-CLUNK._ Adrian stares at its destruction with the utmost satisfaction — but not for long. All too soon the hole filled by broken pieces yawns all the wider. Leaves him open, gaping from the inside out.

He needs more pieces. Anything, no matter the sharp edges or odd angles, to fill the pieces of himself that are missing.

Bookshelves yanked from the wall sent tumbling down, relics and trophies of battles Nadya can see behind her closed eyelids so she keeps her eyes open as much as possible. Even if that means watching Adrian rip what remains of the posts at the foot of the bed to hurl them away from his sight. 

One of the high-backed armchairs he sends crashing into the old fireplace; new kindling on top of the old in a cloud of embers and cold ash. The other is launched through the stained red glass of the bedroom window. Sending thousands of shards like drops of crystallized blood plummeting to the rocky cliff-side below. In the open air Nadya tastes the misty waterfall at the back of her throat. Somehow it helps her choke back her tears.

The tempest of Adrian Raines doesn’t spare anything the naked eye can see. The velvet canopy tears with another post hurled out the open window like a rustic javelin. Weapons mounted as mementos ripped from the wall, and sent in a flurry of directions — all behind him, all _out of his sight._

His fingers and nails leave deep grooves in the old stone walls; chalky powder piling at his feet before they, too, are kicked up and into the air growing so thick with destruction Nadya’s eyes blink back tears to keep the stinging at bay.

The final post he pries free with both hands, snaps to shrapnel over his knee and when all that’s left is a large stake-shaped piece he hurls it at the painting with a final scream of rage and watches, raw and satisfied, as it pierces the canvas right in the center of Gaius’ chest.

Adrian leaves the room in tatters. One man against an army in a war he never really stopped fighting. But just when Nadya spares the fleeting thought — _there’s nothing left for him to break_ — he proves her wrong in that, too. Takes every chunk of bare wood and furniture and tears it to pieces in his shaking hands until she can’t even tell what the pieces used to be.

All that destruction, and Nadya isn’t scared until the dust settles and reveals Adrian so so still, torn jeans and bloody hands riddled with wooden fragments and tears carving canyons down his dirtied cheeks.

He doesn’t look like himself at all. Doesn’t _sound_ like himself, either.

“It’s one thing to see it from a distance — to watch what he wanted me to be… to watch how much _I wanted_ to be what he wanted me to be. All those years serving him not because that’s what he expected… but because he made me think that’s what I needed. That it would make me happy; give me purpose.

“It’s something else entirely to see… to—to see what he really wanted.” Adrian tears against word from his gut against his own will. Tries to bite his tongue to keep them swallowed down but if he doesn’t purge them from his body he might not survive it.

“He didn’t want _a_ Soldier. He wanted _the_ Soldier; the one he was to Her all those years ago. Loyal—unwavering—unquestioning—willing to give—to give _everything_ up because that’s what he would have done. That’s what he _did…_

“That’s what he made me into. He twisted me, warped me — _broke me_ until I was a reflection of what he used to be before he…”

By now, Nadya is all too familiar with the sounds of angry tears. Bitterness and sadness all tangled up until one is indistinguishable from the other. It’s what Gaius turned _her_ into; in a way. She’s seen it in her own reflection. She’s seen it in Kamilah.

_How could she have been so blind to think Adrian was spared the same pain?_

“And I let him.”

Nadya shoves her glasses up on her head; presses the heels of her palms deep into her eyes until it hurts to try and shoves the tears back in her skull. She has to, don’t you see? She has to.

“Stop —” she wipes at her runny nose until the wool of her sleeve starts to burn it, “— you know that’s not true. You _know_ that’s not true!”

“Isn’t it?”

“You can’t blame there and blame yourself. I won’t let you.”

“You have nothing to do with it, Nadya.”

 _Oh like hell I don’t._ “Like hell I don’t!” _Oh._ “Because if the tables were turned and I was standing here blaming myself for everything crazy happening right now you wouldn’t even let me get a word out, Adrian Raines. Tell me I’m wrong. Go on — tell me I’m wrong!”

He doesn’t. It’s a start.

“How could you _possibly_ be blamed for something you had absolutely no control over? What — are you supposed to just be, like, omniscient or something? Were you supposed to _know_ to ask Gaius if he was staging some weird self-fulfilling fantasy roleplay because _he_ never got over _his_ relationship issues? Don’t blame _yourself,_ blame _him!_ Blame him for forcing you to be someone you weren’t! Blame him for manipulating you! Blame him for everything!”

Nadya is shouting so loud she swears she can hear her own anger bouncing through the open window out to the cavern walls. _Good,_ she thinks, _I’ll be angry for us both — for us all._

“It’s not that simple.”

“Sure it is.”

“This isn’t some bad breakup, Nadya!” He rounds on her, mortal eyes filled with immortal frustration. “This is _hundreds of people_ dead because I believed him. This is _years_ of trying to make up for everything I did in his name only to realize I haven’t even _begun_ making things right!”

She can’t believe this. _“You didn’t know!”_

_“I didn’t ask!”_

It makes her teeth grind together. “Alright — _fine!_ So you’re blaming Kamilah, too? She had way longer than you to understand what he was doing, to break free from him. So it stands to reason you’re blaming her too!”

Harsh words but they get Nadya the desired effect. Adrian recoils the slightest bit.

“That’s not — it’s different with her.”

“Why? Why is it different?”

“Because it — just _is.”_

“It really isn’t. You and I saw the same thing, for gods sakes! Rheya was—was _crazy!_ She was manipulative and selfish and she knew exactly how to make people—make _Gaius_ —do exactly what she wanted all while pretending it was their idea! He _literally_ learned from the best!”

“You’re not taking into account centuries of —”

 _“Oh my god will you please STOP with the vampire pity-party!”_ Nadya’s laugh is so dry she chokes and coughs on it; surprises even herself that she keeps going.

“The only difference between what Gaius did and regular ol’ mortal abuse is that he had a longer time to guilt you into these kinds of thoughts. He made his choices, but you’re forgetting that you made yours too! _You_ chose to challenge him! _You_ chose to seek justice! _You_ chose to be _Adrian-goddamn-Raines; a good man and worlds away from what he tried to turn you into!”_

Before she knows it, Nadya’s crossed the room and grasped his forearms so hard it hurts. Her nails digging into his skin without leaving the shadow of a mark but if she doesn’t hold onto him they both might end up spiraling, here, so better safe than sorry.

“Look at me — _please Adrian just look at me!”_

Her voice cracks against her will. But it’s enough to get him to meet her eye-to-eye even with all of his misplaced and wrongful shame. “What he did to you — to you and Kamilah both — is unforgivable. But I’m not asking you to forgive _him._ I’m asking you to forgive _yourself._ Don’t ignore it, or deny it, or pretend none of it ever happened. Just… just keep doing what you’ve been doing all this time. Keep making the world better. Keep saving dumb secretaries who don’t even know they’re in danger, and keep reminding people like Serafine why the world is worth saving. Keep growing, and learning, and making mistakes.

“Because that— _all of that_ —is one hundred percent _you._ I’d bet my life there isn’t a thing on this earth that would make Gaius apologize for any of the crappy things he’s done. But if the fact that you’re so messed up right now about this doesn’t prove just how _badly_ he failed in trying to make you like him… then I’m wasting my breath.”

The way Adrian’s looking at her — crumpled, ragged, worn down to the bone — breaks her heart. Even more when the parts of her head that always worry about saying the wrong thing (except without the filter to stop them anyway) try to whisper between her ears that _she_ is the reason for the look on his face. That her words have done this to him.

Slowly he parts his lips. Spells out half-words and not-fully-syllables with increasing frustration until he finally decides something along the lines of screw it and pulls Nadya against his chest in a desperate embrace. Adrian towers over her like this, his chin practically digging a dent in her skull. But the silence is deafening — apart from the two tiny pinpricks of wetness on her scalp that speak all the words he can’t quite manage just yet.

And that’s okay, he doesn’t need to. She can wait.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another 2-chapter update this week as I wind down with Part 1! Keep a look out for the next chapter in a bit.
> 
> The one thing I knew I wanted from the start was a fitting purpose, plot, and _point_ for the Dark!Adrian storyline. They straight-up abandoned it in the middle of _BB2_ and I will never forgive them for that. Throughout the course of this book he's had his lashing out moments, his dark moments; the times where he's been violent where his usual Adrian-brand of level-headedness would have been much more useful. Some of it was the influence of Gaius' return, yes. But the rest even Adrian himself didn't know, and seeing the memory with Nadya kind of put it all into perspective for him. I can't wait to show you all the rest of his arc throughout the series, because now he knows, but what he does with that information is what defines him. Hope you enjoyed!


	24. The Identity

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> While saying a final farewell to the City of Shadows, Serafine's emotional turmoil leads her to reveal the final clue of a puzzle one hundred years in the making. It's time for Cadence to finally learn the truth... no matter the consequences.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **content warnings:** grief, trauma, mentions of death, language, strangulation

They should start the next leg of their journey as soon as possible. But by the time Nadya and Adrian leave the awful wreckage of Gaius’ old room behind and find the others, she doesn’t think her body can physically manage another step.  


_Of course — throwing me over Jax’s shoulder would probably make the trip back to the surface more than a little faster,_ the reasonable part of her thinks; but reason is too tired to argue over the extremely prideful (and correct), _but that will happen over my dead body._

They’ll stay just long enough to rest and recover; that’s the agreement. Long enough for Adrian to piece himself back together. Long enough for Nadya to find the remnants of _herself_ among the straggling memories taking advantage of her exhaustion. And—though she won’t admit it aloud—long enough for Serafine to get a chance at a proper goodbye to everything she once loved… and all that she had to leave behind.

“It’s really beautiful down here… scary vampire hunter skeletons aside.” After all, everything beautiful in Nadya’s life comes with just a sprinkle of scary these days.

Serafine stands in the middle of the ballroom; surrounded by hollow shells of armor and the ashes of everyone she once cared about but still impossibly beautiful. Like all those years ago when they were breathing their last, the Knights decided to crawl out of that very spot. Like they knew she would return to see it one last time and made a path for her; a morbid procession.

One floor above them Adrian rests to regain his strength and heal his punctured palms. She had left Lily, Jax, and Cadence to their card game down in the kitchens to go find Serafine. Not that she has any idea _why,_ exactly… Nadya just… felt like it was something she needed to do.

They are completely alone here.

Maybe that’s why Serafine feels the freedom to wistfully reminisce. “This is nothing more than a tattered husk of the splendor these halls once held.” She cranes her head up to the soot-stained ceiling and the iron-and-glass chandelier still miraculously overhead. “With no daylight to hinder us, the City of Shadow was never anything less than alive. In more than just the King’s Manor.”

She gestures towards one of the double-door entrances to the dancing hall. In the distance Nadya swears she can see walls of actual bone and skulls not unlike the catacombs so far above their heads. “There to the Northernmost caverns, lies a labyrinth once called the largest in the world. Endless puzzles and clues all come together to create a maze only solved by the exceedingly cunning or the desperately bored.”

“Which were you?”

That earns Nadya a bemused little smile. “A little bit of both. In the early decades, before the City grew, I devoted all my time and energies into her foundation. A good thirty years had passed before I went back up to the surface. Surprising even then how much the world could change in such a short time.”

“I wouldn’t call thirty years _short…”_ But Nadya wasn’t here to debate finite things to an infinite woman. So she lets it go.

“So what about when it _did_ grow? What was it like?”

 _“C’est manifique…”_ the lace-trimmed edges of Serafine’s sleeves billow slightly as she twirls with all the grace of a lifelong dancer, “I dare not speak it aloud for fear I would not do it justice. Parties lasting weeks, academic debates that stretched across years. After lifetimes cowering in barns, sleeping amid mass graves for fear of discovery; praying to the First that the sunrise would be once again met by sunset, and that it would not be our last… the _freedom_ that came from demanding a home from a world that had forsaken us was… I have no words.”

Nadya believes that. Why else would she be crying so freely; laughing so tragically?

“But none of it held a candle to the night the City fell.” Serafine continues unbidden this time. Too lost in her own memories to even withdraw as Nadya awkwardly fumbles on the tips of her toes around the Knights’ remains; coming ever-closer.

“You said you were having a… a party, right?”

“To use such a crass word —”

“— that’s the word _you_ used, though —”

“— only for lack of a better one. We risked _everything_ for it, Nadya; _everything._ Secreted trips to the surface for finery and the things only the nobility could afford, but never appreciate. Not as we would. It was to be my crowning glory. The culmination of decades of devotion’s labor.”

Her words, poetic in their beauty, are only enhanced by the emotion with which she speaks them. Clasped hands clutched to her chest; like the very memory of it will be enough to defy the laws of nature and make her heart beat again. But with them comes a dawning understanding for Nadya — one that bridges the chasm between fond recollection and the tears that cling to the bottoms of her cheeks.

“The party that night… it was yours.”

The way the vampiress’ face falls makes Nadya’s heart break all the more. “It was my confession of undying love, you see. To Paris, to the City; to everyone who had found a home here as I did.”

“I’m… so sorry.” Because what else is there for her to say? What else is there for _anyone_ to say when the tragedy of it happened such a long time ago but it’s only now that Serafine is given the chance to face it? _It’s just not fair._

Empathy shines through warm honeyed eyes; no trace of the woman desperate for answers she had met in the library. Grief does funny things to people, though, so she won’t give Serafine anything less than her understanding for that. How cruel would she be if she did?

A smile tugs at the corners of Serafine’s lips. And it’s impossible to have a woman _that pretty_ looking at you like that without feeling fifty shades of self-conscious. “What,” Nadya ducks her head, bashful; tucks her hair behind her ears, “what did I say?”

“Nothing worth such a shy face on such a lovely young lady.” She ghosts her fingertips feather-light under Nadya’s chin to bring her back away from their shoes. “I was just thinking of how Kamilah looked at the presentation.”

Nadya’s eyes widen. “Kamilah was there?” And Serafine nods.

“Indeed. As if I would host such an important event without finding opportunity to placate the King himself… and his Queen alongside.”

“Yeah… that makes sense.” She doesn’t have to _like it,_ but it does either way. The thought sweeps Nadya’s eyes across the charred remains of upended tables and armor plates splattered with blood the color of rust. She doesn’t even know what she’s looking for — a ghost of a memory of her, maybe. Trying to follow the path her long sweeping dress must have trailed as she danced.

Another memory and Serafine’s laughter bubbles out yet again. “Oh how _livid_ she was that I did not take her for the first waltz. She had made me promise, you know, earlier that evening, that I would. But I was the hostess… I had obligations.

“Still, there’s something to be said for holding up her end of our little deal. She wore the masque I gifted her all night.”

_The mask._

Even if Serafine had decided to launch into a detailed description of the thing; Nadya wouldn’t need it. She knows exactly what it looked like; like one long strand of gossamer steel warped and needled together to frame her face in all its beauty. Any other mask would be made to hide someone away, but Kamilah’s was crafted so no one would ever question who it belonged to — or the importance of her.

But the vision of the Kamilah in the library was brief; it fades, she fades, into smoke on the air.

And all at once Nadya realizes that’s the _second_ mask she’s seen since they came down here.

Eyes glassy and focused somewhere on the far wall, the smile starts to slide from Serafine’s face. Nadya has to squint her eyes to hope for even a glimpse in the darkness… but if her glasses aren’t failing her she’d swear the woman can’t look away from a large broadsword embedded high up in the stone wall.

High for someone like Nadya, anyway. Not for someone a few heads taller.

“Serafine?”

She doesn’t answer. She knows what she’s said — that she can’t take it back. _Can’t risk saying anything more._

“Serafine.” This time Nadya isn’t asking.

The part of Nadya that knows what it felt like to see Rome fall without hesitation already knows the answer. She still finds herself asking it. No matter how pointless it is.

“Serafine… was Cadence h—”

_“Speak of the devil and he shall appear!”_

Lily’s laugh, loud and boisterous, hacks through the tension between them like a rusty machete. Startles Nadya enough that she’s stumbling back, hand clutching her chest feeling her heart race for reasons she’s still a little foggy on. When she looks up, Serafine is largely unfazed; but instead of the sword in the (stone) wall, she’s whirled around to the intrusive sight that practically frolics through the farthest set of doors.

Ask Jax what he’s doing and he’ll have a thousand different excuses, all of them covering up the fact that he’s pretty much holding Adrian up with his shoulder. Cadence flanks Adrian’s other side, flicking a cautious glance their way every other moment or so like he’s ready and waiting in case the other vampire isn’t as recovered as he’s apparently led them to believe.

That leaves Lily taking up the front; leading them on like a punk Robin Hood and her Band of Merry Vamps. She spins on the heel of her boot as the ceiling arches up and vaults around the ballroom, neck craning all the way back until she’s very near falling over.

She doesn’t — thankfully. But she _does_ mistake Nadya and Serafine’s startled reactions to their arrival as part of an ongoing joke.

“No but seriously, Nadi’, Cade was just telling us about some booze he taste-tested for Garrus, back down in New Orleans? Go on, tell it dude, tell it!” She smacks the back of her hand against Cadence’s chest in open encouragement. Unfortunately judging by the sheer embarrassment on his face it’s anything but.

“I told you twice now; without context it’s just a story that ends in me streaking all the way into the Mississippi.”

“That’s what _makes the story!”_

He rolls his eyes at her, then offers Nadya an apologetic smile. “I’m assuming I don’t have to excuse her behavior? Though I think she’s just as excited to get out and up top as the rest of us a—”

“What’s going on?”

Jax’s question, gruff and clipped, cuts through any shred of amusement left hanging. Narrowed eyes flit back and forth between Nadya and Serafine and if his reaction alone wasn’t enough to dial the discomfort up to eleven the way Adrian shifts to stand up a little straighter definitely does the trick.

“Did something happen?”

The vampiress opens her mouth and closes it just as quickly. Nadya can practically feel her biting her tongue. All traces of her wide-eyed dreams and heartfelt memories gone like they, too, were all an act.

_Just like she had been acting back in the atrium._

Lily rubs her temples with a groan. “I swear to god — can’t things go right for, like, twenty-four hours? What fucked up this time?”

“I…”

The moment is waning fast — and taking Nadya’s confidence with it. One whole minute ago she had been _so certain_ of something _so important_ but now—now she wonders, now she considers all the possibilities. Coincidence? Poor word choice?

Something — _anything_ — other than Serafine having some big bad secret that would wreck everything.

But the look on Cadence’s face… not now, not confused like the rest of them. But back at the Shadow Den; full of desperation. Or struggling to keep hold of his sanity in Katherine’s arms; fearful and small. And all Nadya can think about is how she would feel if someone she knew kept the truth from her. For no good reason at all.

“Cadence?”

He jerks to attention, not bothering to hide his surprise. “Yes Nadya?”

“I think…” _swear on her life it looks like Serafine mouths_ “please, no” _out of the corner of her eye,_ “I think you were here when the Knights stormed the City. I think I had that—that vision of you wearing a mask because you were here, in the ballroom; at Serafine’s party.

“I think Serafine knows who you really are.”

The tension ripples out around them. Thick enough to slice into neat little squares and stack up like bricks. She almost wishes she could; can’t shake the sinking feeling that some kind of guard or protection would be helpful right about now.

They move in synchronized silence. Cadence raises his chin; strong jaw taut in a show of confidence the wavering sea of confusion in his eyes betrays. Serafine does the opposite; casts her head away from him, from Nadya, from all of them in a manner almost ashamed.

 _No, not ashamed, not personally._ This close and with all those walls she worked so hard to build up in such a short time starting to crumble at the foundations Nadya can feel the strength of it growing with every passing second.

She’s… ashamed of Nadya. Somehow.

“Serafine, is there truth to that?” Adrian speaks out of turn; shattering the fragile quiet. _It’s not his time to speak,_ something whispers at the shell of Nadya’s ear, _he knows what he is._

Like the ballroom itself waits on bated breath for Cadence to act; to do something, say something — _anything_ that will pull the world around them back into orbit. It’s the only way they’ll survive.

But he doesn’t. To be fair Serafine doesn’t either; though it’s obvious even to someone as blind as Nadya without her glasses that she’s _refusing_ to speak. And doesn’t that just say it all.

“Why won’t you look at him?”

The vampiress whips around, hair lashing at her face like a dark hailstorm. Eyes on Nadya definitely meant to instill fear and definitely halfway to getting the job done. Too bad Nadya’s a nervous talker. “I didn’t notice it at first… but besides the apartment and the atrium you don’t _look_ at him. Why?”

“There’s still time to stop asking questions.”

“What’ll happen if I don’t?”

“Terrible — _terrible_ things.”

And at the end of her not-so-thinly veiled threat, Adrian finds his limit.

“Tell me I’m not hearing this —” he’s already been through so much; the pleading in his voice one step shy of desperate, “— tell me I didn’t just hear you _threaten_ Nadya.”

“It wasn’t a threat.”

“Sure sounded like it to me,” Lily mutters.

“It was a warning.”

Then she laughs. Bitter, rueful; familiar in a way Nadya’s still a little too unmoored by literally everything happening to place properly. She proves Nadya wrong by pushing the hair out of her face with a flat palm to meet Cadence with a level stare nothing short of venomous.

“Which one of us shall have the honor, then?”

Cadence’s lips purse, but he still says nothing. If his intention is to rile her up it’s definitely working… and then some.

“For a man with a reputation built on actions over words, you were always a mite _chatty._ I find it hard to believe centuries of old habits are so easily restrained.”

It was a revelation Nadya couldn’t have held in even if she tried; even if her life was on the line. But now, standing here, feeling the building rage in Serafine’s curling accent — she would give that same life to take it back. Because there’s no way this ends with a rousing debate and firm handshake.

And because… because maybe if she’d just kept her damn mouth shut they could have avoided this, here; and everything still yet to come.

Serafine steps back. Here’s a power in her space. All Nadya can think of is a cobra rearing back to flare its hood.

_“Si c'est le jeu auquel vous souhaitez jouer, qu'il en soit ainsi… Monsieur D’or.”_

Nadya’s struggling here, sans subtitles as she is, but she knows just enough about fancy perfumes to catch the name.

 _Mister Gold?_ What is this, a fairy tale spinoff series?

They all watch — a captive audience — as Serafine throws Cadence a malicious sneer. “Were I naive enough to call this coincidence, I would be better off for it. But we have been at this dance for too long, you and I. But you played your part well; well enough to fool even the _Bloodkeeper._ Your _Benevolent God_ must be so _proud._

“At first I thought you were playing the worst sort of game. Some ruse you thought to be clever — wearing the facade of a decent man when you and I know you are everything but. I hoped to bide my time here, to dissect your intentions from afar. You are not the only one who can play pretend.”

She bites the inside of her cheek hard enough to bleed; staining crimson along the seam of her lips. “But this… this is too much, even for you. You’ve never been one to let your depravities fall under a different name. No… you are too proud for that. You know it, as I know it. As I know you. The _real_ you — the monster hidden under golden hair and gilded lies. How else was I to track you for as long as I did; to ensure I would get the vengeance I was owed?”

She pauses and waits for an answer. Something prideful of her own nature in the gleam of her eyes but the longer she waits the faster it fades. Cadence refuses to take her bait.

“Fine. Just tell me. Tell me how you did it.”

“How I did _what?”_ asks Cadence warily. Nadya can’t understand why he isn’t rebutting these accusations. Why he isn’t as distraught as he had been in front of Valdas, or as angry as he had been in front of Isseya? She’s not exactly making _light_ conversation.

Pleading ignorance only enrages her more. “How did you survive? I barely escaped that damned trench with my life! Hours I spent in the darkness, turning over every man dead and dying, and I could not find you. You _died._ You were turned to ash!”

He fixes her with a hard stare and a chin raised in defiance.

“Obviously not.”

His short answers are just enough to keep pushing her. _Maybe that’s what he wants,_ Nadya thinks; after all — the more she talks the more she accuses; the more she fills in the missing pieces of the puzzle.

And only Serafine knows what it will look like when it is completed. For now.

Serafine wavers; his confidence (no matter how projected or pretend) forces her to step back once, twice until she stumbles over the rusted forgotten half of a crossbow.

Cadence only takes pity on her because he needs her to keep going.

“I woke up in a military hospital in New Orleans, Louisiana in 1918. I don’t know how or why I ended up there. I had no memory, no tags… no home. But very much alive. Whatever method you used to try and end my life, if that is truly what happened, didn’t stick.”

 _Maybe it didn’t stick, but there was definitely damage done._ And Nadya sees it now clear as day.

Before she’s even half a step forward Lily’s hand grasps for her wrist; a familiar shackle. Nadya eases herself free without looking back. Can’t shake the feeling that if she looks away everything will shatter and be so much worse.

“Serafine…” She stands between them; powerful creatures fast enough to move no matter where she stands, strong enough to snap her like a twig for getting in their way. _How the heck is it I always end up somewhere here-adjacent?_

 _“How_ did you try to kill him?” But all that gets her is a dazed flutter of Serafine’s dark lashes; not an answer. So Nadya pushes.

“Did you try and kill him psychically?”

The answer rests there, written across her face plain as day.

“He needed to suffer; as I suffered, as we all suffered because of his selfish acts.”

Nadya nods slowly. “You made him remember your pain.”

Serafine bares gritted teeth at them. Nadya catches the hint of her fangs in the dim candlelight and fights against the shivers trying to roll down her spine. 

_“Non,”_ she protests, “I forced him to _know it_ — to _feel it_ for the first time! It was justice that he should die knowing the pain he brought down on his own kind!”

 _Another piece._ “But something stopped you from finishing the job.”

There’s so much pain hovering in the air around them. Pain of the memories still echoing through her mind. Pain from Serafine in waves on a roiling sea. Pain from Cadence as he looks down at Nadya with an uncomfortable uncertainty. “How do you…?”

“She wanted you to remember. Instead, whatever happened… it —”

With closed eyes Cadence bows his head; he understands now.

“It made me forget.”

 _Maybe it would have been kinder never to know._ But what’s done is done.

Lily clears her throat, hand half-raised. “Did I miss something before intermission or… am I the only one with zero clue on what’s happening right now?”

“Seven hundred years is a long time to live, isn’t it.”

Serafine drags herself back into focus. Out of the pain of the past to the here and now. To where Jax may not be accusing her with words, but his intentions scream a whole other story.

She nods once. “Longer than most of you could even begin to fathom.”

 _“‘Most of us?’”_ His eyebrows raise slightly. He shifts Adrian into a better angle against his side. “That’s rather specific of you.”

“There was once a time when the wrong words meant a swift death in halls such as these.”

“So why do I have a feeling you’re choosing the right ones?”

There’s a shift in her; the barest movement of her body and more the way her soul moves under her skin. One little shift and that’s all it takes for Nadya to see _this_ version of Serafine for the third time. Three times too many, if anyone cares to ask.

Because the glower she faces at Jax is nothing less than every kind of anger — and then some. “What would you know? Dwelling in the gutters, hiding from your own kind. At least we had the dignity to hide from our enemies rather than make enemies of ourselves.”

 _‘Serafine…’_ Adrian’s lips curl around her name but there’s no sound. No, _sound_ would mean he has something to say, and he doesn’t. What is there to say at a sight like this?

But to everyone’s surprise Jax stands his ground. “But that’s not entirely true, is it?”

Nadya swallows the heart-sized lump in her throat. “What do you mean?”

“What I _mean_ is that I did quite a bit of reading down here. My intention was to try and get as much background on this _Order_ as possible. I’m not exactly the type to sit around and twiddle my thumbs up my ass, if you’ve noticed.

“Now don’t get me wrong — I hate Gaius as much as the next guy. But he did his due diligence when it came to war. I found a ledger. Page after page filled with detailed logs of recon. missions meant to track the movement of the Knights—or the Order, I don’t care—that all ended the same way. Randomly they made about as much sense as everything going on right here and now. But put them together and they started to look less like random hunts and more like a pursuit.”

Jax jerks his head aside to Cadence; his head still cast downward. “I’ve been good since we got here; not a gamble to pin me to. But I’d go all in and bet those _pursuits,_ most of ‘em leading up to a couple of months before your _big event,_ were all about finding one really dumb sonuvabitch.”

“The Dawnslayer…” Nadya whispers — quickly slapping her hand over her mouth like that will suck the words back in. But it won’t. It doesn’t.

“All of this —” Serafine steps back with arms spread wide and open; as though looking out to the death scattered around them will somehow detract from her fresh tears, “— was ruined! My City, my _home,_ a careless casualty in a selfish war of pride and egos! He _invited them here._ Led them to our very gates! All for the thrill of battle and the glory it would bring him!

“And— _ha_ —wouldn’t you believe it — he _miscalculated the enemy’s numbers._ Hundreds of Knights descended on us, more than I had ever seen together! Fledglings I had taken under my wing — friends I had known for _hundreds of years_ — they were all _ripped from me in a deluge of fire and wrath!_

 _“I watched them burn, Adrian!”_ Bright red eyes blurry with tears, the emotions in her throat so thick she’s on the cusp of choking and that only makes Serafine scream all the louder. _“They did not NEED to die! We lost everything! Our home! Our heritage! Our kingdom and city!_ Our blood seeped so far into the fucking ground and we never— _never_ —recovered from it!

“He deserved to feel their pain — _my pain!_ He deserved to suffer consequences for his actions!”

Adrian steadies himself with a shaky breath. Gently he eases away from Jax, holds still for fear of collapsing, but if one of them has to be strong… of course he’ll offer himself up.

“Killing him wouldn’t have done that, Serafine,” and Nadya almost chokes hearing that; knowing the different tune he’d been singing not long enough ago — seeing _her Adrian_ again, “I know in the moment, maybe… it may have seemed like the answer. But —”

“Killing him wasn’t _his_ punishment.” Her conviction throws him off kilter only briefly; that’s more than enough.

“I don’t understand…”

“I do.”

Even Serafine looks at Cadence in shock. There’s a newfound peace in his voice and acceptance clear in his eyes. Strides slow and measured, he passes Nadya right on by and closes the gap between himself and Serafine. She flinches when he gets too close; not unlike a wounded animal.

Palm turned up, he brushes away the long streaks of tears on her right cheek. “Men like that… there’s always a part of them that wants to die, I think. Their lives don’t really mean much to them. So you find what does; you find what they care about. And you hurt that instead. Right, _Mademoiselle?”_

At first she doesn’t answer. Instead she waits, and waits, and waits for the inevitable trap to bear down on her. When none comes… all she manages is a nod.

“That was the easy part. You already knew what he cared about. Just like you already knew exactly how to hurt them so deeply, so _intensely_ they would never recover. You took him from them, right? Because it was only fair… and because you knew they would be too broken to continue on.”

Cadence pries off his glasses with his free hand and holds the frames with delicate care. With closed eyes he leans forward — down to her. Serafine sucks in a breath, feels the pressure of his palm cupping her face, and trembles when their foreheads meet.

“After all…” Seconds, minutes, maybe even years pass until, finally, his eyes open just barely. Enough to seek her out through lowered lashes and hold her gaze. To keep her there, practically cradled in his arms. Even as his hand slides down and presses an impossible weight against her throat.

_“There is no Trinity without three.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cliffhanger? Yes. Hope you enjoyed, as always comments and critique are more than welcomed!
> 
> I redesigned a scene from this chapter as one of my fake screencaps! Check it out [**HERE!**](https://clansayeed.tumblr.com/post/631984391707557888/oblivion-bound-fake-caps-11-bound-by)


	25. The Faceless

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A shocking confession leaves Nadya confused and Serafine on edge. But now isn't the time for them to be divided. When a hidden threat makes itself known, the only way they're getting out of the City alive is together... or not at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **content warnings** : language, violence, canon-typical violence, blood, hallucinations, dissociation, minor character death, descriptions of the grotesque, descriptions of infection/disease

“Cynbel, please let her go.”

It’s not her lack of oxygen that has them on edge. Serafine is a vampire, she doesn’t need to breathe. But something about the sight of her slender neck and how _fragile_ it looks in his broad palm makes Nadya — at the very least — starkly aware of how easily he could separate her head from the rest of her.

Jax is still as stone in her periphery but Nadya hears the all-too-familiar hiss of his katana handle dislodging from the sheath. That very sound has saved her life more than a fair few times but now, of all times, it only fills her with dread.

“Don’t Jax — he doesn’t…” she wishes she hadn’t looked back to see Serafine’s nails digging long red grooves into the pale arm that holds her captive; it’ll haunt her for years to come, “he doesn’t…”

 _What? He doesn’t know what he’s doing?_ That’s too tall a tale, one even Nadya herself can’t muster the energy to believe. He knows exactly what he’s doing.

She took everything from him. He’s just returning the favor.

“This isn’t what I wanted… if I had known… if someone had told me this is what I’d learn…”

Nadya almost throws her heart up on the ballroom floor. _“Cadence?”_

Nothing makes sense. Nothing made sense when she woke up the first day she knew vampires were a real, actual thing and they just haven’t made sense every hour of every day following. Even more now when she takes into account where she is — _what_ she is notwithstanding. And all _this_ happening right in front of her isn’t the exception.

But she knows what it looks like when Cadence is… _overtaken_ by something out of his control. It doesn’t look like this.

With literally no confidence in what she’s doing or that she’ll survive the sheer idiocy of the attempt Nadya starts slowly moving towards them.

Adrian practically chokes. “Nadya—what are you doing?”

 _“Get the fuck over here—”_ hisses Lily, too. But the only one who actually _does_ anything is Jax. Classic Action Man.

“Don’t you d—” Jax’s words get cut off, like most angry declarations do, when the back of Nadya’s hand collides with his face. Not that it was her complete intention but it does the trick and gets him to back away. Still she can feel him fuming behind her; hear the full whistle of his sword meeting the open ballroom air and every time his teeth grind together as he thinks up new ways to drag her back just as she ends up too far out of his reach.

“I can do this.” Nadya reassures them, even if she sounds a little meek doing it.

There has never been a point in her entire life where Nadya was taller than the next average human. She has a dozen more things wrong with her to have a complex about; her height is not one of them. But standing at his back Nadya can’t help but feel smaller than she really is. He’s not just tall now, is he? He’s weighed down with thousands of years and no guilt to speak of.

 _No, Cadence isn’t._ Remember that… she has to remember that.

Steeling herself, Nadya reaches up and out with a hand that has no business being that steady when she’s ready to jump out of her own skin… and lays her palm on his back. Even she’s surprised when she sighs in relief. Nothing’s changed yet; Serafine looks ready to claw him down to the bone in the next second or two. But somehow Nadya just _knows_ this isn’t the nightmare scenario they really should have prepared for.

“I’m sorry I called you Cynbel. You’re not him, Cade.”

“On the contrary.”

Nadya’s brow furrows with resolve. “Let her go.”

“Why should I?” before Nadya can even open her mouth, “This is who I’m supposed to be, isn’t it? This is what’s expected of me…”

Serafine’s hands fly to her neck, wiggling two—three fingers in a gap that definitely wasn’t there before. She’s getting through to him. Weirdly, and pretty much solely on luck at this point, but she _is._

She takes a moment, puts on her brave face, and presses her hand down hard enough for him to actually _feel_ her touch.

“But is it what you _want_ to do?”

She’s waiting for him to speak when she sees it; the barest flicker of his head from side to side. Whatever came over him to begin with is sucked out into the void just as fast. Cadence recoils far across the room before Serafine’s knees even hit the ground.

Adrian’s at her side immediately. “You’re okay… you’re okay…” Crooning in her ear, kissing the droplets of sweat from her temples and holding her so tight Nadya can see the strain of it on his muscles from here but if their situations were reversed… well she doesn’t comment, leave it at that.

“Adrian —” the woman hiccoughs his name; like there’s no other word that could even compare, “— Adrian I…”

“It’s okay. You’re safe.”

 _“Non, mon amour…_ none of us are.”

Serafine’s in good hands — some of the best and Nadya has personal testimony to back her case. But she still lied, and some part of Nadya can’t help but wonder what else she’s hiding behind the psychic walls she knows about and maybe the ones still there just out of her conscious reach. So she doesn’t feel any guilt about turning away from them and running across the room, leaping over broken hunks of wood and a few husks of armor until she’s skidding on her knees along the flagstones to where Cadence sits, huddled. His knees pressed to his chest and a not-so-strange emptiness in his eyes staring through her, rather than at her.

Nadya’s watched herself in the mirror too many times not to know what a panic attack looks like. Immortal or not.

“I’m not him — I’m not him I swear —”

“I know you’re not.”

“But I _am._ Somewhere I can’t reach — like an itch inside of me and all it takes it one little scratch and suddenly — suddenly I don’t know where I am, or what I’ve done, and there’s always so much blood…”

She tries to laugh it off, “well you _are_ a vampire…” but that’s not helping so probably best to pretend that didn’t happen.

Sometimes all that can be done is nothing at all. So Nadya just sits there. Pulls her own legs up against her chest (though that’s more to keep warm than anything) and rests her chin on her knees while Cadence mumbles whatever he needs to tell himself to calm down. Some of it she recognizes; a litany chant of “I’m not him, I’m not him, I’m not him,” while others are languages she’s heard but doesn’t know, and a few she’s doubtful have been languages for a long time.

Twice Nadya glances over her shoulder and through her hair to check on the others. The first time Adrian and Serafine are right where she left them. The next; they’re gone. Jax and Lily are either too smart or think she’s too dumb to be left with him on her own and, sure, that’s fair. But hopefully the smile she tries to offer them conveys just how much they really mean to her.

A loud _thud_ makes Nadya jump in her boots. Whirling her head around to see Cadence finally easing up in his limbs and a large crack in the stone where the crown of his head decided to take a break. Besides his closed eyes and absolutely no breathing whatsoever, though, he seems relatively unharmed. Physically, anyway.

But he’ll talk when he’s ready. She just waits. and waits. and has an awful lot of time to think about certain things _while_ she’s waiting and none of them are exactly pleasant. Unfortunately the stretching silence is more than ample opportunity for Nadya to finally understand exactly what happened back there.

She kinda wishes she hadn’t.

When Nadya finally looks up again she’s met with the familiar sharp scrutiny of Cadence’s stare. _Small blessings._ But unfortunately that means no more waiting around.

“You know… don’t you.”

A long, stretched silence. Like Cadence would rather have waited out the decades it took for Nadya to grow old and wither and die just so he wouldn’t have to give her an answer.

Maybe that’s why she’s so surprised that he actually does. His voice so quiet; a whisper on the wind.

“I had my suspicions.”

“Since when?”

His eyes narrow in a glare. “Oh, _not long._ Just since Valdas showed up on my office doorstep with a bouquet of orchids in one hand and dinner reservations in the other. So… late May, early June?”

“Alright, cool it Sassmaster General. It’s a valid question.”

“… Fair enough. There’s a litany of other small things… ones that could be coincidence on their own but trying to call them that when put together just made me realize I _wanted_ to stay ignorant. Can’t really do that now though, can I?”

Nadya can’t help the frown tugging at the corners of her lips. “Then… why ask me to help you figure it out? Why come all the way upstate to tell me I’m your _‘last chance?’”_

Amused, Cadence huffs a wheezing, heartless little laugh. “Because that’s exactly what you were. I never lied — I swear to you on that. But so long as there was even the slightest lack of proof… so long as Kamilah Sayeed bit her tongue in her fear rather than confront me, or Valdas skirted around real truths and didn’t _actually_ know what happened during the War; I could pretend all the signs pointing to me… were meant for someone else.”

With a long groan Nadya leans back, propped up with her palms on the dusty floor and head angled up to the dark-stained ceiling. “Well that’s… great.”

He arches a thick brow. “What is?”

“Oh, you know… Listening to you has me realizing that I owe pretty much everyone in my life giant apology fruit baskets when all this is over.” Rolling her head back to attention; “Because if I sounded half that delusional I have _literally_ no idea how they put up with me.”

It’s more meant to settle her nerves than anything else but hey, the fact it gets the barest quirk of a smile out of him is just a bonus.

“I’m lucky there. Most of the time it’s only Kathy who has to. And she’s contractually obligated, so…”

“Yeah, but she’d be there anyway.”

“You know… I don’t think you’re wrong there.”

His dry laughter doesn’t last long. In fact, it dies out right in the middle — like a scratched record. Nadya looks up to see something pained crossing over Cadence’s expression, making him bite at his lower lip until he’s wiping blood from his chin before it stains his sweater.

“What do you know about him, Nadya?”

She doesn’t need to ask who.

Cadence finally looks her in the eyes again and immediately Nadya wishes he hadn’t. The pain bleeds from him into her soul in scalding waves of despair. “Have you shared in any of his memories? I’m… I’m so sorry if you have. Because from everything I could uncover, _he_ was not the kind of man that someone like yourself would want to get to know. Not in the intimate way the Bloodkeeper can.”

_“‘Someone like myself?’”_

“Someone good. Someone kind, and caring, and empathetic, and filled with a desire to put their goodness out into the world and who always seeks out the chance to do better — to _be_ better.”

And doesn’t _that_ make her laugh. Nadya can’t really help it.

“Well that’s kind of loaded. You make me sound like some kinda altruistic angel. I’m definitely not.”

“You are compared to him,” the vampire insists; so fiercely and like the louder he speaks the more she’ll believe him — in a way she kind of does, “hell— _everyone_ is compared to him. That’s what it looks like when you put an ordinary person side by side with a monster.”

Nadya thinks back; back to the memory Valdas had used her to relive, to the portraits hanging in the _Musea Sanguis_ and in Marcel’s library, and then back farther still. To things she doesn’t remember— _couldn’t be remembering, not with her own mind_ —times of strange, chaotic confusion. Where the rest of the world was full of noise but muted; empty and hollow and devoid of the things Nadya filled her existence with the most.

_Life. Longing. Laughter. Love._

_Them._

And all of it gone. No, not gone… something can’t be _gone_ if it never existed in the first place. That’s what makes their arrival so jarring; so violent. Like a knife to her middle and the blade is made of something she needed but could only accept in a terrible, traumatizing way.

Before she knows it, Nadya’s crying. And not even Serafine’s kind of silent, lovely tears either; where she’s shrieking like a banshee but still somehow perfectly pristine. She’s heaving sobs and holding her sweater sleeves to her nose to keep from looking like a snot monster and thank god Cadence is there to hold her glasses to keep her tears from staining them all up. But they sting and burn in her eyes and _she misses them so—so much it hurts—so much it’s going to crush her—so much she would rather be anything but conscious if it keeps her from feeling the ache of being apart from them—_

He waits until all that awfulness is reduced down to, like, a two to hand Nadya back her glasses. She takes them gratefully, voice thick with a stuffy nose, and wishes there was any way in the world she could play this off as cool.

“Do you want to…”

“It wasn’t me,” Nadya clarifies before Cadence can even get the question out, “I mean… it was me, but it wasn’t… _me._ Anyway that doesn’t matter.”

He looks doubtful. Glances at something over her shoulder and Nadya’s sure she looks like a real mess but she’s grateful, for once, not to have someone else to shoulder her burdens. They’re never going away. She needs to learn to deal with them by herself too.

“If you’re sure.”

“I’m sure,” —a beat— “about _that._ But I’m not sure about what’s gonna happen going forward.”

His shoulders slump. “Right. Because I…”

“… attacked her, yeah.” Nadya groans and pinches the bridge of her nose. “We really have to stop trying to die before we even make it back up top.” _We’re doing Gaius’ work for him._

“It won’t happen again, I assure you.”

Now it’s her turn to look doubtful. Cadence takes it in stride though; like a good trooper. “Honestly,” he continues to insist, “I… will admit I was a little out of sorts back there but, no offense, she’d done the very thing I was hoping no one would ever do.”

“And how can we be sure you won’t…” _What’s a nice way to mime slamming one of the most powerful vampires in the world into the wall like she was a rag doll?_

“Ah,” he clicks his tongue, suddenly unable to look Nadya in the eyes, “I see what you mean. Well luckily… there’s a simple way to avoid all of that trouble. I don’t fight, I don’t black out.”

 _Simple,_ he says, and even shrugs his shoulders like they’re talking about the freakin’ weather, or what to order for appetizers. And very much not about his tendency to go _Ultimate Street Fighter_ on anyone who so much as looks at him the wrong way when he’s like that.

Though… it _does_ tug on a few lightbulbs in her head. “When you saved us in the alley… that was you…”

He nods and finishes it for her; “— avoiding conflict, yes. As far as I can tell, brains over brawn is the best way to go. It doesn’t _always_ happen; my blackouts. But there’s always the risk.”

Nadya sucks her bottom lip between her teeth. “And… if it were to accidentally happen anyway?”

She really doesn’t like the way Cadence’s face falls. At least he’s being honest though…

“As far as I’m aware, and I use the term loosely, Kathy is the only one who can bring me out of those… fits.”

 _“‘Fits’_ being flashes of Cy—” But there’s suddenly a hand over her mouth that’s keeping her from saying the name. Cadence levels a stern frown right in her eyes. The intensity of it both jarring and a little cool at the same time.

“Please… for my sake, and yours, and probably everyone’s. Don’t… don’t say his name.”

“Just in case?”

“Just in case.”

Okay that’s… maybe half of one of their problems solved. Nadya can only hope that wherever Adrian and Serafine are they’re talking, you know with their mouths, and not… anything else. Adrian would vouch for him, right? He knows Cadence pretty well — he’s always at least liked the guy.

Cadence offers Nadya a hand and helps her up. All the color drains from her face in that exact moment; which is just bad timing more than anything.

“Are you alright?” he asks, that same concerned frown back in place like it had never left.

“Yup, peachy keen.”

_Note to self!! Do not bring up Adrian’s weird One Nighter with the Bad Guys!!!_

When the pair come back up on Lily and Jax, her friends exchange dual looks of _‘yeah, we’re not buying this.’_ And it’s sweet — they’re sweet. The best friends a girl could ask for, really. Well… a best friend and a loose acquaintance who happened to be handy with a super sharp sword.

Before they can say anything though Nadya holds up her hands and takes the floor for her own. “Yeah, it’s weird — and yeah there’s a lot that still needs figuring out. But he’s still Cade, he’s still our friend… he’s just more our friend on the sidelines than our friend on the front lines. At least until we get back up to the surface and find this stupid Tree. Okay?”

Neither of them respond. Not an option. “I said _o—kay?”_

Lily sighs and nods… then leans in none-too-subtly. “This isn’t a Voldemort-and-Quirrell thing, is it?”

And Nadya can say it is with full confidence that she shakes her head. “Think Jekyll and Hyde.”

“You know I can hear you, right?”

They look up into Cadence’s not-at-all amused frown. Well… at least _some_ things were kind of normal still.

Or they _were._

Until a loud, hollow groan echoes across every wall and ceiling beam she can see.

_GGGGHHHHHHRRRRRR…_

Lily (rightfully, even if it stings) glances down at Nadya’s stomach. She throws her arm over it self-consciously. More than a little offended but fear is rapidly overtaking every other emotion she’s capable of.

“Was that —”

_“No!”_

_GGGGGGGHHHHHHRRRRRR…_

“Are you s—”

“It wasn’t my stomach, Lil’.”

Who groans beside her. “You couldn’t have pretended with me for like… a minute?” _Touche._

_GGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHRRRRRRNNNN…_

By the third time nobody is moving. Necks craned up to the rafters, flashlights moving this way and that desperate to find the source. Even though, by that third time, they all know a universal truth.

That the noise—whatever it may be (that isn’t Revenge of the Canned Beans)—is way too loud to be coming from inside the Manor.

But not too loud to be echoing on repeat around the cavern just beyond the door.

 _Way to go Nadya. You just_ had _to jinx it!_

* * *

Like a group of teenage mystery solvers their gangs collide smack dab in the middle of the front foyer. Adrian and Serafine on one end, Nadya and the gang on the other; and for a brief moment the eerie howling in the distance is forgotten in the face of their more recent… _revelations._

Serafine reaches up to her throat unconsciously. The sight makes Cadence swallow and avert his eyes.

“Bigger problems, guys.” Nadya stresses; emphasis on the _stress._

Adrian’s frown deepens. “You heard it too then?”

“How could you not?” Jax looks to the gaping space that used to be the front doors as he says it. They’ve barely given it a thought since their arrival. But now… all Nadya can see is a giant hole in their defenses.

_Tch, what defenses?_

Nobody asked you.

All together (though with Serafine pointedly on one end and Cadence on the other — no complaints here) they empty out of the King’s Manor and into the cavern. The damp air leaves a chalky taste on her tongue, but _taste_ isn’t the sense she needs most right now.

No one moves.

No one speaks.

Nadya doesn’t even give herself the luxury to _breathe._

Finally, Lily breaks the silence; raising her voice to be heard over the nearby waterfall. “I can’t tell if I’m just hearing the echo in my head or…”

“I don’t understand…” While the rest of them look around aimlessly for any sign of the disturbing noise’s source, Serafine knows these caverns well. Eagle-eyed her head darts this way and that; locking on to the staircase they arrived from as well as others in the dark too dim for Nadya to see.

Jax scoffs. “What’s not to understand?”

“The Knights collapsed the old districts during their purge. Our path was the way through which I escaped; but the rest have been sealed off ever since.”

“But isn’t there even the slightest chance one of the tunnels could have been discovered?” asks Adrian, whose shoulders slump when she shakes her head.

 _“Non,_ not this far down.”

_GGGGGGGHHHHHHRRRRRR…_

Nadya’s stomach sinks. No matter where they look it all rings the same. The noise is coming from everywhere and nowhere all at once; reverberating through the stone until it isn’t just one sound, but a _legion._

This time, Jax doesn’t wait until it fades to voice his frustrations. “Maybe back _then_ it would have been, but we can’t rule anything out.”

“You think we did not anticipate the City lasting through centuries of innovation?”

“Well I sure don’t think a bunch of Dark Ages scavengers _anticipated_ the _light bulb.”_

“Jax —”

“No, Adrian, he’s right.”

“I don’t recall asking your opinion, _Monsieur D’or.”_

Senseless arguing. The untraceable growl like an ever-present white noise. It all fades to wordless noise; something Nadya can hear but doesn’t take the time to process.

And through the cacophony of it all she hones in on one sound.

Dainty, whimsical laughter.

She looks back over her shoulder to the Manor’s depths. It suddenly seems so dark inside, which makes sense seeing as they—and their flashlights—are all out here. But the cavern has a natural glow to it. Phosphorescent mushrooms, maybe. Or the way their LEDs catch and sparkle all the way down the waterfall overhead.

It makes the way back in look like a yawning abyss. Beckoning her, calling out for Nadya and her alone.

She allows her feet to carry her back inside; trusts them to guide her to where she needs to be. Every step forward and the laughter grows louder — is joined by the ancient whine of a bow on strings and the pipes whistling in the background. Music fit for a grand party.

Nadya surprises even herself when she isn’t startled by the movement out of the corner of her eye. Maybe because she’s pretty sure at this point her eyes are about as untrustworthy as the rest of her senses. This is a memory. She’s certain of that. What she _isn’t_ certain of, though, is to whom the memory belongs.

Their group is small; no more than five or so, all dressed in dark and rich fabrics and all wearing some form of mask. She only sees half a face; nothing more… and nothing less. Odd, translucent figures flit around them like they exist in some kind of bubble but those never last. Other than Nadya they are the only ones in the foyer but that’s in the here and now. Wherever they really are — _whenever_ they really are — they are huddled away from curious attentions.

The closest figure to her is a man with eyes hidden with a more traditional mask design. If only that did something for bottom half of his face turned down into a frown so sour Nadya feels her own lips start to twitch.

 _“There’s an awful lot of Faceless here tonight,”_ says the sour-faced man; turning his nose up at party guests Nadya can’t see, _“I would not have wasted my time with such a_ disparaging _lack of_ prestige.”

Nadya’s brow wrinkles in confusion. Whatever that means. But by the way his entourage reacts he’s speaking boldly and way out of line.

 _“Really, Marquis?”_ asks one of his entourage in scandalous whisper.

_“I would think not showing your face would be far worse.”_

_“Indeed.”_

_“Yes, yes.”_ Agreement ripples out among them in hushed tones. Nadya can’t see his eyebrows behind the mask covering his forehead but his eyes are definitely narrowed.

 _“So quick to judge me — yet I’m eager to see how many of you survive the_ waltz _with such slim pickings!”_

A woman passes by close enough for Nadya to imagine the tickle of lace trimming on the back of her hand. The Marquis’ crowd parts, unbidden, and allows her to settle at his side. Somehow Nadya knows before the woman even opens her mouth that she is the source of the ghostly laughter that drew Nadya in.

She regards the Marquis with cool expression defined in a waxing crescent of thin silver plating contoured perfectly to her every curve. The gathering shifts dynamics. No longer do they hang on every scathing insult from the Marquis. They would much rather hear what she has to say.

 _“Indeed Marquis,”_ comes her soft reply; her voice melodic and darkly alluring, _“I share your sentiments. Of course, with the weight of_ prestige _carried by one such as yourself you must not be worried about the inevitable tilt in scales this night.”_

The Marquis bristles. Nadya’s arms break out in gooseflesh.

_“And what makes the great Duchess say as such?”_

_“Why my dear Marquis; they do, of course.”_

The Duchess points a slender, silk-gloved finger towards the doors leading to the ballroom. She, the Marquis, his adoring fan club — they all turn to witness the arrival of someone Nadya doesn’t get to see. Whoever it is exists outside of what’s left of this memory.

They vanish all at once; the candle blown out by a wind both real and not that carries around Nadya and leaves her… _wrathful?_ No, that isn’t quite the word she’s looking for. Whatever it is it’s something she’s never felt before — and that’s probably not a good thing.

The only thing that comes close is—

“There you are.”

Relief washes the worry away from Adrian’s face when he sees her. If she wasn’t still trying to put a word to this new experience of hers she’d probably echo the sentiment. But her stomach aches — like physically, painfully aches — and she has to rub her palms into her eyes as a wave of exhaustion makes him go temporarily fuzzy.

Hands fall protective on her shoulders. “Please don’t wander off like that again, Nadya…” And for a man without breath he sure sounds like it was punched out of him.

“Sorry.” But it isn’t a sincere apology as much as it is an automatic response. Nadya knows it; worse still Adrian knows it. His grip tightens ever so slightly.

_“Adrian?”_

_“Did you find her?!”_

“We’re… in here.” He calls out to answer, and not a moment later the others file into the parlor with varied degrees of relief.

They’re her friends. They care about her. So why does the sight of their faces fill her with a passionate rage?

_Something is very very wrong._

“Who are the Faceless?”

A muscle tenses in Serafine’s jaw. The brief, accusatory glance she throws Cadence’s way is about as subtle as a bullhorn.

“Where did you hear that name?”

“That’s not an answer. _Who are they?”_

On either side of her, Adrian and Lily exchange looks of surprise — and mutually melt into concern. Sure, Nadya will fully own up to the curt, harsh tone she has right now but if they knew what she was feeling… if they could understand even a _fraction_ of the pain roiling in her belly right now they might just be a little testy too.

Realization dawns on the psychic’s face way too slow for Nadya’s current temperament.

“You saw something… a memory.” _—and is that a flicker of fear hiding in those eyes?—_ “What — or who — did you see?”

“Answer the fucking question.”

 _“Nadya.”_ And she’s acting like a jerk; she knows that. But the bewildered way Lily _accuses her_ with her own name feels like a knife to the chest.

_“What?!”_

“No — that’s _my_ question. _What_ is the matter with you?”

Nadya opens her mouth — she can feel a whole litany of insults and jibes right there on the tip of her tongue — so she bites down hard enough to break skin to keep them buried where they belong.

“I—I don’t know…” her words muddled around the stinging cut, “I… I just…”

_I’m so…_

Dammit! What word is she looking for?!

“The Faceless were the lowest tier of our society,” answers Serafine; _finally,_ “and by all accounts they were the majority of them as well. By our rankings they were forbidden to wear a mask — a status symbol — that would show their face. To do so was a grave insult, with graver consequences.”

 _“Tch…”_ Jax shakes his head minutely. “Ridiculous…”

“Think what you will. But they were the foot soldiers the night of the purge; the first to die… for their betters.”

_Faceless._

_Nameless._

_Ageless._

The Manor is suddenly _maddeningly_ quiet.

“Hundreds of them…” she whispers, “hundreds on either side. He hated being seen with them, near them, even far away. What does it matter though? Hundreds of them and he outranked them all… There aren’t enough bodies.”

Cadence sucks in a breath; his teeth clenched. He’s gone pale; as dead on the outside as he technically is inside. “There aren’t enough bodies…” he repeats, each word weighed on his tongue heavy with truth.

The rest of them join him as the historian spins in a wild circle rooted in place. They had pushed the skeletons and their armor aside after that first walk through the Manor’s main passages. It kept them from tripping over scattered bones in the dark. It kept them from having to think about the weight of lost life.

_It wasn’t the Marquis’ laughter that drew her back inside._

Nadya looks down at her trembling hands and chokes on her own scream.

The sight is enough to send her into a terrified frenzy. The bulging twisting spiderwebs of black that were now her veins, of greying skin so fragile it feels paper-thin, of _talons_ yellowing with age and crusted with layers upon layers of dried blood…

Forcing a ragged sob through her chest is the hardest thing she’s ever had to do. Like pushing a mountain through a molehill, or mouthfuls of blood down her gullet where her hungry eyes were too big for her stomach. “Getthemoffme —” she shrieks, “— getthemoffme _getthemoffGETTHEMOFF!”_

She’ll do it herself if they won’t. Teary, bloodshot eyes falling on the sword just out of reach but strong arms stop her in her tracks; hold her back, stop her from getting rid of these awful— _rotting_ hands—

_“NADYA!”_

Lily’s always been able to scream louder than her. So loud the echo of it rings high-pitched in her ears long after her best friend has stopped shouting her name. She clutches Nadya’s hands with her own; a horrifying sight. And no matter how hard she pulls Lily doesn’t let go. Adrian doesn’t release her from the captivity of his embrace.

The chill of Lily’s smooth skin burrows a home in her muscles and bones. She squeezes them tightly; bordering on real pain. But nothing is more painful than what’s to come.

“Nadi’…” the way Lily says her name; thick and haggard and with wet tears on her lips, “Nadi’ you’re scaring the _shit_ out of me…”

 _Good!_ “Don’t look—don’t look at them. Don’t Lil’ don’t…”

“At what —” her eyes widen in understanding, “— at your hands? Nadya, look.”

She blinks back her tears, her apologies, her pleas of desperation… and sees nothing but her own hands — clammy and shaking but _so very human_ — cradled in Lily’s tender care.

“I don’t… I don’t understand.”

“They’re just _hands,_ baby girl.”

“No— _no_ they were…” _But were they, really?_

Nadya keens and doubles over as another wave of _something_ tears through her middle. Her legs are ready to give out. Adrian—bless him—is the only thing holding her up now, so she accepts it and sags against his chest too exhausted to move.

Adrian presses a tender kiss to her temple. His lips like a cool palm against her feverish fit of pique. But he’s shaking, filled with a fear all his own. He can’t swallow it down forever.

“Serafine,” he pleads against the shell of Nadya’s ear, _“help her… please.”_

 _It’s kind of him to ask,_ Nadya thinks wistfully, _even if it’s too late._ Three hundred years— _left behind left in the dark—made to flee from the fire—abandoned forgotten sacrificed—scouring endless paths for even a drop enough to slake the thirst—forced to guzzle down the same taint in shared blood over and over and over again_ —too late.

She can hear Serafine’s somber voice, muffled through the skin tight and calloused over her eardrums. If only Nadya remembered words enough to know what she’s saying.

 _Words…_ Finally, an eternity later; she has the right word to describe the pain.

“She feels _empty.”_

They left her there. Insolent, vainglorious things — and they just _left her._ Abandoned her despite her _prestige,_ despite her beauty and wit and charm; condemned her to twist and wither both alone and surrounded by her kind.

They let this happen to her. They let her delicate hands warp into talons and did nothing to stop her alabaster skin from greying with disease. They were content to forget her while her long hair falls out in clumps, while her own bone tries to break free from her skin and mars her with protrusions like horns for lack of success.

They honored her in wretched memory. As her youth peeled away, sinking in and hollowing out, until what they remembered and what was left was no longer the same. Until all that was left was an insatiable hunger. A starvation that consumed her — mind, body, and soul.

Her only companion… an emptiness inside.

_Until now._

_There aren’t enough bodies among the dead._ Where did they go?

Stumbling—staggering—starving. Scrambling endlessly through winding passages, surviving on the eternal cycle of their Taint. Unable to find freedom in the tangible darkness.

They didn’t go anywhere. They never left.

Outside the ancient and hallowed walls of the King’s Manor, the horde growls. Louder than before; and now—knowing what they know—far more menacing.

“Lily,” Adrian reacts quickly, motioning for the younger vampire to help him as they both take up on either side of Nadya, their combined strength and her arms over their shoulders practically lifting her off her feet.

“We’re too exposed here. We need to get deeper inside.”

And judging by his tone he knows that his suggestion is less than ideal. But what other choice do they have?

* * *

“Do we have any idea how many there could be?”

“Don’t look at me. Those two were the ones here when it happened.”

_“Technically —”_

“Yeah, I included you in this. Don’t gimme that look.”

“No doubt there were a fair few of those left behind who thought Turning the enemy would be a final insult… but all it takes is one of those vile creatures to breed a swarm.”

There’s a long pause. Then— “Trust me,” says Adrian, “I’ve seen it firsthand.”

Lily wasn’t there that night. At the _Musea._ She had the pleasure of roughing up Nicole, not going head to head with the things vampire horror stories are made about.

“So… theoretically. How good are our chances?”

Adrian chooses not to answer; and in that moment even the tiniest flicker of optimism is snuffed out.

They regrouped in a second-floor parlor of some kind. Filled with more burned wood than the rest of the Manor and a misshapen, disfigured lump in the corner Nadya comes to realize is a pile of painting canvases. Stacked one on top of the other then set ablaze. Though the smell of oil and paint has long since seeped into the wood, potent enough to make her feel a little woozy, they don’t have any immediate plans to father elsewhere.

This parlor is the only one with a window facing the network of tunnels leading far to the north of Paris. Their only way out.

“We must assume we cannot go back the way we came,” Serafine admits gravely, “even if we managed to slip by a few of them without being heard no doubt the torches have long since attracted them like moths.”

Jax grimaces. “We practically rolled out the red carpet for them, is what you’re saying.”

Nadya doesn’t turn away from the window; doesn’t think she has the strength to do something so strenuous as turn even the tiniest bit. But she sees Serafine’s reflection clear as day, and the woman’s curt nod makes her heart sink.

They probably shouldn’t have put her on lookout duty, all things considered. Not just because every shadow she sees out along the rocks makes her blood freeze in her veins, though that’s definitely a factor.

_If I can’t trust my own eyes… how can they?_

Talk about being under pressure.

Jax looks at Adrian. “You guys dealt with something similar at that Ball, didn’t you? How’d you take care of them then?”

“We nearly didn’t,” Adrian admits, and it occurs to Nadya this is the first time she’s ever heard him talk about the attack at the Awakening Ball, “and when we learned it was someone from Vega’s Clan who smuggled the initial wave in, our survival seemed less like luck and more like just another part of his plan.”

“But you still fought them off, you still _won.”_ The younger vampire insists.

Frustration starts makes Adrian’s replies terse and forced. _“Yes, we did,_ but that was with the combined strength of the entire Council—including Kamilah’s two thousand years of experience—and more than several of North America’s strongest vampires.

“Not to mention the Trinity.”

The last part he says like more of an afterthought; quieter and more to himself. A muscle ticks in Cadence’s jaw but he remains otherwise silent.

“Then our course is clear,” Serafine steps between them; practically a whole different person than the woman in the ballroom, “we wait for their attack to gauge their numbers. Then we do whatever we can to break through to the Northern Quarter.”

There’s a weight to her words that has nothing to do with the _literal Feral horde_ practically on their doorstep. They don’t have any other choice; not a one of them. They’re the only ones who know what weapon will kill Gaius and if that means only one person pries their way back up to tell the ones fighting back home… so be it.

“I don’t like the thought of waiting them out.”

“You do not have to _like it._ We have no alternatives.”

_“Rrragh!”_

Behind her Jax lets out a short growl of frustration. The very sound makes Nadya flinch on her stool; shoulders hunched and shaking like a leaf. The scuffled sounds of his frantic pacing stops immediately. She can feel his eyes boring into her back, watching; waiting for her to break like a little glass figurine.

She’s caught by surprise though when Cadence unfolds his arms and approaches with loud and purposeful strides. She hears every step until he’s at her back like a wall — or a shield.

On the other side of the glass the shadows shift again. Like they sensed the tension easing from her soul for even a fraction of a second and have to make up for the lost time in terrifying her. Nadya decides then that’s more than enough of an excuse to turn her back on them.

When she can finally meet her friends’ eyes she looks up to find Serafine studying her intensely. “Wh-What?” she asks, voice wavering.

It doesn’t help she’s still too scared to look at her own freakin’ hands.

“You were inside the creature’s mind.” _Gee, thanks for stating the obvious._

“I know. I was there.”

“Perhaps you could be again.”

“Perhaps you could shut up.”

Lily quirks an eyebrow at her in a silent question. No doubt they’re all wondering just how much of what Nadya says and does is in fact Nadya Al Jamil… and how much is the twisted madness of a starving Feral. But they don’t need to worry; she’s pushed that thing as far out of her little personal space bubble as she could. That anger is one hundred percent hers, and one hundred percent warranted.

Cadence clears his throat over her head. “Well if it’s any consolation, Jax, it won’t be a _long_ wait…” Unprompted, he’s taken up Nadya’s vigil; eyes so wide she can see a thin ring of white around his blue irises and focused far in the cavern’s distance.

The shadows are moving faster now. They scuttle like spiders around shallow cliffs and down the many _many_ staircases, descending on them in a frenzied haze until there aren’t _many_ of them, but instead one _big mama shadow_ heading their way.

There’s no deluding herself now… those aren’t shadows.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Today officially marks the end of writing _Bound by Destiny II part 1!!_ Capped off at 32 chapters, so 31 + the epilogue. I can't wait to share it with everyone oh my god.


	26. The Barricades

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Trapped in the King's Manor and the horde closing in; Nadya would like to think their bare-bones excuse for a plan is pretty resourceful given the situation. What else can they do?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **content warnings** : language, mild dissociation, hallucinations, implied/mentions of violence

They barricade in the ballroom.  


It’s the last place any of them want to be — _some more than others_ — but with the Manor’s front doors about as effective as wet tissue paper against a brick they have to find _some place_ to make a stand. The ballroom has just enough ways in and out that they can manage keeping an eye on each one without feeling like they’re trapping themselves in.

_We’re hundreds of feet underground, where nobody knows we are, and being quickly surrounded by probably hundreds of rabid snarling Feral vampires._

_It’s a little too late for them to be feeling trapped_ now, _isn’t it?_

But a place to hole up in is just one of probably a hundred and one problems they have right now.

Jax and Adrian take the last of the long banquet tables between them. With soot-stained hands they quickly add it to the pile heaping in front of the last uncovered entrance.

“How do we know— _heave dammit_ —there aren’t a hundred more following our trail back to the chapel entry?” Jax asks.

Adrian waits until the table is secure to answer. 

“We don’t.”

“That’s reassuring.”

“It’s realistic. But one thing at a time.”

Jax knows he’s right but he doesn’t have to like it — so he won’t. “I’d say there’s more than _one thing_ to deal with!”

They both look across the dance floor at that; eyes landing almost involuntarily on Nadya where she paces.

Where she’s _been_ pacing. Back and forth long the same five large diamond tiles over and over and turn and over and turn and—

A loud _bang_ to her right has her nearly screaming; looking around wildly and she knows she’d be dead if the horde was _actually_ breaking through right now because all she’s doing is just _standing there_ like a deer in headlights.

Thankfully it’s just Lily and Cadence returning from the kitchens with the last of the supplies.

Serafine looks up from her bag, tinder in hand, and gestures for them to add their haul to the pile. “Over there will do.”

“You’re _welcome.”_ Lily makes a point to say. Serafine’s jaw clenches, but all she can manage (where Cadence is involved anyway) is a curt nod.

Nadya uselessly wipes her sweating forehead with her sweating palms, and wraps her arms around her middle for comfort. Not that it does a lot of good.

“Are you feeling okay?” Adrian’s voice is much closer; she turns to see him nearly at her back and tries not to bristle at how silently he steps. _Good for them, bad because they_ are _vampires fighting vampires after all._ “You’re paler.”

She scoffs gently. “I’m _great,_ thanks…” but he’s trying to help her, trying to be there for her, and all she’s doing is being a jerk, “it’s just the oil getting to my head, that’s all. What a crappy time to need oxygen, am I right?”

His frown sets in deeper, barely a twitch in his muscles before he’s pulling her tightly into his arms. If only that would be enough to keep all of them safe.

“Nadya… I’m so sorry.”

“Me too.”

“No,” he eases them apart to look her in the eye, “you have no reason to be. This is all —”

“Adrian Raines, if the next words out of your mouth are _‘my fault’_ I’m actually going to kick you in the shin.”

He hesitates, thinking it over… and lets the thought go unfinished.

“None of this would be happening to you if I hadn’t kept you on. Or if I’d had you debriefed — as I should have done.”

 _Blink. blink._ “Please tell me you’re not doing this right now.”

But he is. She knows he is. They know one another too well — both creatures of regret as they are.

“You know… if you’d had me debriefed you would have had to take me to Jameson.” And she can’t believe he’s not thought about this already — evidence enough in the look of realization dawning on his face. Personally, Nadya’s gone over every way her life could have gone different dozens of times by now. “And we both know he was working with Gaius long before I ever walked into your building for an interview. He would have dug his awful, backstabbing little psychic fingers in my head to make me forget and then what would have happened?”

“He would have discovered you were a Bloodkeeper anyway.”

“A-plus answer.” She wiggles her arms out from between them and cups his cheek with her hand. _Sorry about the sweat,_ she thinks to herself, as she takes in the dark circles under his eyes and the slight scratch of stubble on his jaw. It’s something so small… but it reminds her of better times. 

Like that one evening they stayed late at the office, Adrian in his armchair and Nadya curled up on the couch and his little bar cart between them while he let her ask every single question about vampire life that came to mind with zero filter. Not that she still understands exactly how _“vampires don’t need food or water to survive but our bodies can still digest it, our lungs don’t need air but we can still speak, and our hair and fingernails still grow but at an exceptionally slower rate than that of humans”_ works, per se, but at the time that was the most impossible oddity in her life… and Nadya misses the naivete that girl used to have.

“I think this — all of it, everything with Gaius and you and me and Kamilah and…” —steady breaths, she’s shaking— “and even what happened to Lily — I think it was supposed to happen.”

Adrian raises an eyebrow. “What, like fate?”

“Sure, call it that. Call it whatever; destiny, kismet, any of that weird ‘meant to be’ stuff. Maybe the finer details were a bit rusty. We sure made some mistakes along the way…”

“Some of us more than others.” Which is a comment Nadya ignores because knowing him—and she does—he means himself more than anyone else.

“It was all supposed to happen one way or another. Though I think I could have done without ending up in the vampire version of a zombie apocalypse ending.”

They share a smile. Strained, sure, but shared.

But of course the moment doesn’t last. Not when Jax passes them by with a snort and a roll of his eyes. “Great work you two! Real hustle!”

“I do what I can.” Nadya sticks her tongue out at him when his back is turned. But he’s right — they have a lot to do. And judging by the rumble of Feral bellies growing louder still, they’re running out of time.

Adrian jogs off to help Serafine with the last of the gunpowder barrels, while Nadya joins Cadence by the remaining oil canvases. She takes the switchblade he offers in silence and gets to work cutting into the thick fibers. Cutting the sheets away from their frames and then into long strips, surprising even herself with the steadiness of her hand while she works.

_Dirt and mud. Claw and bone. Hunger hungerhungerfreshrich and pumping through a stillbeatingheart—_

She jerks back at the tickling on her chin, noise of protest caught in her throat. Only to look down, mortified, at the sight of _her drool_ on the back of Lily’s hand.

“Is now really the time to think about burgers?” she asks, and though neither of their smiles quite reach their eyes the sentiment is appreciated.

“I haven’t stopped thinking about junk food since we got down here.”

“Ugh,” Lily groans and drags a frame behind her, much larger than the others and punctured off-center, which rings vaguely familiar, over to join them, “you and me both. The first time Mari and I went out for fries and milkshakes after I was Turned was… actually not the nirvana I thought it would be. But right now I’d kill someone for a choco-malt.”

Cadence hums. “Hopefully more than just _one._ You’ll have ample opportunity soon enough.”

Nadya leans back to try and catch the subject of Lily’s grand haul. Her best friend notices right away and quickly flips the canvas right-side up with delight. “Thought you might wanna do this one yourself.”

The giant hole in Gaius Augustine’s face was satisfying enough to see when Adrian had finally let out the last of his frustrations on the over-compensatingly egotistical portrait looking down on them from above his suite mantle. And now she gets to get a little bit of that venting out herself.

She feigns an _“awww,”_ hand over her heart. “Really, for me?”

“Well if you don’t wanna…” But Lily can barely make a joke of pulling it back before Nadya grabs for it; dragging the golden frame wide across her lap because some chances for metaphorical justice simply cannot be wasted.

“The sheer fact that this is the only thing making me happy right now says a lot. And so does the fact you went and got it for me.”

“Damn right.”

As the King of Vampires is slowly turned into long scraps, however, the sight of him and remembering what happened those short hours ago sets her ill at ease. _We’ve been here for days probably… what changed? What brought them here on us now instead of any time before?_

The stern frown that stares back at her (that she cuts in half at the seam of his lips, because Nadya isn’t a violent person by nature but art is about expressing the inner self and all that) is more than answer enough. He, like Nadya herself, watched on as Adrian screamed his rage; he took it all out on the room with the window wide open. As if he didn’t blame himself enough already.

So Nadya makes Gaius promise not to tell, because sometimes she knows when too much is too much.

When they finish Nadya tries to give the knife back, but after a long pause he gently closes her fingers around the handle for her.

“Keep it. Just in case.”

“I have stakes.” _What’s a shallow knife gonna do against a Feral,_ she thinks with some measure of frustration. “If one gets close enough to me for this to actually do some damage… I doubt I’ll be alive long enough to use it.”

There’s something comforting about casually mentioning her own mortality. Maybe because she can feel wet stone under her fingertips and hear the siren song of her own blood through someone else’s senses.

But Nadya doesn’t give him the same kind of argument she’d give the others. They have a plan of action, everyone has their part to play. And for him it isn’t on the front lines. The sad fact is they are all in mortal peril regardless of who is fighting where and how. But the thought of adding the kind of violence Cadence’s blackouts can create into the mix of what is a staggeringly slim chance of survival doesn’t sit well with her.

If this _is_ some kind of end, he deserves the right to be the man he wants to be.

It’s what Nadya would want… if it were her.

She flicks the knife closed and shoves it in her pocket for safekeeping. “Thank you.”

“You can feel her, can’t you?”

“… Yeah.” She casts a look at the farthest entrance, back to the front hall. “She’s the closest. I don’t know how or why, but she’s out there.” _And she’s called dibs._

A heavy strangeness, a kind of resignation, falls over them soon after. They’ve done all they can and they have to accept that, no matter what. But alongside that knowledge is a silent anger. The closest their bleak outlooks can come to a will of survival maybe.

Adrian pulls Serafine close by her waist and presses a long, lingering kiss to her lips. Chaste, but important. His lips move soundless to Nadya’s useless mortal ears but judging by the way Jax, Lily, Cadence avert their eyes the words probably aren’t meant for anyone else, anyway.

“Well at least I can say one good thing came from all this shit.” Lily hefts the ancient crossbow over her shoulder and flashes her most video-game grin. “I always knew I’d look good with one of these.”

“Do you even know how to _use_ it?” asks Cadence, and through her indignation Lily’s confidence only slightly falters.

“I can figure it out…”

He sighs and waves her off to an emptier (read: less likely to hit anyone with a stray attempt-er) corner of the room. “Come on… I did a few papers on the advancement of modern projectile weaponry after Normandy. I’ll show you the basics.”

“Of course you did.”

But she follows him anyway. Probably for the best, though Nadya’s glad she isn’t the one who has to say it.

_Which leaves…_

“Time to hash out a heartfelt goodbye?”

Nadya reaches out and wordlessly Jax takes her hand to help her up; watches her dust off the knees of her jeans and goes back to keeping himself closed up. Arms tightly folded across his chest.

She looks at him curiously. “You think we should?” And in typical Jax fashion he shrugs it off.

“Everyone else was.”

“But you’re not the type.”

“How do you know what _type_ I am, Council pet?”

The nickname — one she hasn’t heard in a long time but she’s only just realized that obviously — is probably meant to make Nadya bristle. Instead she just laughs.

“And here I was hoping for another one of your famous motivational speeches.”

He tries to keep his frown; really he does. But Nadya doesn’t miss how he keeps resisting the almost forcible twist of his lips.

“Nah,” he shrugs it off, “I have to save _something_ for my book, huh.”

“I knew it.”

Silent settles over the odd companions then. They watch Cadence shift behind Lily, adjusting her stance and hold before both of their fingers squeeze on the crossbow trigger and a bolt goes flying into the nearest wall.

Nadya sucks in a breath; almost says something… but maybe she shouldn’t.

Jax decides for her. “What?”

“I just don’t think I ever thanked you,” she keeps her eyes trained on Lily; her best friend still alive, still sane, still completely and blessedly herself, “for taking care of her. When she was Turned, I mean.”

Of course he tries to shrug it off.

“Espinoza didn’t give me much choice.”

“I think we both know if you don’t wanna do something, Jax…”

She trails off, watches him sigh begrudgingly. “Yeah yeah. Well… she was a fighter from the moment we broke her out of Raines’ place. That’s usually a good sign. Strong will, you know. It’s the ones with a strong will that usually survive it.”

Nadya hesitates, but dares to say it anyway. “You had a strong will too then, I’m guessing?”

He’s the only one she doesn’t really _know,_ isn’t he. She’s got no real idea why now, of all times, she’s thinking about that but here she is. And it makes sense when she chooses to accept it rather than let it rattle around in her head. _Of course you’re having these thoughts,_ her conscience says, _he’s here for you and you don’t know anything about him._

And judging from the look he’s giving her out of the corner of his eye… that’s just the way the surly swordsman likes it.

“No,” he answers; looking away, “I didn’t.”

_Well, you’ve judged wrong before._

Before she can even begin to try and answer, though, they run out of time. That’s the only thing she can call the way a chill as cold as the grave runs down her spine, leaving Nadya with her mouth slightly open but the only sound that comes out is a pained sort of whimper.

Jax’s jaw clenches.

“Guys… it’s time.”

_THUNK._

_THU-THUNK. THUNK._

The same sound over and over and over again. The six of them crane their necks up to the ballroom ceiling; to the Manor roof and all of the heavy objects falling atop it in rapid succession. Dozens of them; maybe hundreds. Solid primal energy followed by the skittering and scratching of just as many claws racing over the old roof tiles.

Desperately searching. Begging with their bodies for a way inside.

Adrian is the first to look away. He nods resolutely. “You know what to do.”

He and Serafine wait until they absolutely must pull apart to unlace their fingers. Like actors on a stage they all move at once and in sync. Adrian, Serafine, and Jax take up their respective positions. All of them with the same bright burning red of their eyes; each with their own weapons. Jax’s sword gleams with the distant candlelight. Adrian’s muscles ripple tense in his clenched fists. Serafine had returned from her gunpowder hunt with an old cutlass fastened to her belt — now she holds it aloft and with practiced poise.

The look suits her.

Before Lily raises her crossbow at the ready, Nadya reaches out and squeezes her hand hard enough to pull a muscle. Her voice is choked, raspy in her own ears.

_“Hey, Lily?”_

_“Yeah?”_

_“… I love you.”_

Lily squeezes back.

_“Love you too.”_

They wait. The silence unending. Stretching out, blanketing them in the dark…

Nadya closes her eyes.

And sees herself, back turned; unawares and so very _very_ alive.

_For now._

All at once the barricades burst. Flying furniture and clattering stone and three big empty _gaping_ holes left behind. 

The horde comes pouring in.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A bit of a short one to start off, but that's because this week is a double-feature(?) posting week! So in a couple of hours Chapter 27 will be uploaded as well. Once I realized I had yet to give Lily the crossbow she deserved I knew I had to rectify it. Thank the Order for sturdy engineering??
> 
> Hope you enjoyed, as always comments and critique make my day!


	27. The Monsters

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A horde descends on the Manor. They all have to play their parts... some better than others. Serafine burns down the ballroom, Lily kicks some ass, and Cadence has a blackout.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **content warnings:** language, violence, arson, blood, major character injury, violence consistent with canon, hallucinations, dissociation, mild gore

_“NOW!”_   


A trio of small candle flames topple over and become long burning, crackling trails. Smoke billows high up into the air as the ignited gunpowder races along the maze of paths laid out in front of the barricades. They hadn’t been built to last; no more than big clunking doorbells.

They’re everywhere. So many of them moving in blurry shapes dark on dark around flashes of small bright fireworks and Nadya’s so focused on trying to catch sight of even _one_ of the creatures she barely catches Cadence shouting in her ear “Cover your eyes!” before three trails find three large piles of gunpowder-covered canvas-bombs.

_BOOOOOOOM!!_

Heat and light and noise. All bursting out — a wave that crashes over the entire ballroom. Powerful chaos; sheer and raw and violent and for the smallest fraction of a second Nadya swears everything that’s happened so far has all been a dream. That they never came down here; never even went to Paris. Her brain tricks her into thinking they are still below Central Park, in the Council Chamber, and Gaius’ eyes burn with a power that hasn’t walked the earth in three thousand years.

_“—adya! Nadya!”_

Someone shoved the bells of Notre Dame in her ears and made sure they stayed inside with fistfuls of cotton. The ringing rattles her — keeps her frozen in place and hunched over and begging for it all to stop until it doesn’t. Until she hears Lily’s voice start to join in, barely recognizing the syllables of her own name.

_“Come on — we need to move! Get up Nadya, get up!”_

She gets up just in time to see a hulking figure lurch through a wall of fire right at Lily’s back.

“Behind you!”

Before either of them can do anything about it Jax’s sword make a surprise guest appearance straight through pallid, aged flesh. Black ichor splatters across their faces and Nadya shuts her mouth so fast she might actually crack a tooth.

_Rather a trip to the dentist than a Feral all her life._

The monster, grey and towering nearly as tall as Cadence still using himself like a shield at her back, twitches and writhes on the blade. Speared in the dead center. It tries in vain to grasp for the blade but only succeeds in dragging deep wounds along its cupped palms; staining its feet with its own blood.

 _“Kkkkkeeeeee!”_ It’s screeching pierces her ears like knives; long and sharp like the row of jagged teeth it calls a mouth. 

Most of the creature’s lips peeled back ages ago, leaving nothing but the gaping maw behind. It hurls spittle at their faces, writhes its bulging tongue at them like it can taste her blood on the air. Maybe it can.

Because the horror of a mouth is nothing compared to the rest of its face. To the two large punctures above that could be called nostrils — though only under duress. They flare underneath a faint ridge of bone but the cartilage has long since been eaten away. Though it has enough to spare over its eyes. Or… where the eyes _should_ be; _would be_ on any normal Feral. 

She remembers in nightmares the way the Ferals at the _Musea_ had stared at her, skin pulling away over their misshapen skulls to reveal bulging eyes bloodshot and practically vibrating in their sockets. It will always be there; perfectly preserved in her mind’s eye — and far more preferable to the blank slate before her. Thick, calloused skin like one big sheet of scar tissue stares down at them. So tough it’s impossible to even make out the sockets and riddled with gouging streaks; marks of survival among the battleground of natural selection the City of Shadows had devolved into all those years ago.

The Feral finally stops thrashing when it realizes the sword is staying put. Nadya’s eyes widen when she sees it; skin stretched over what she _thought_ was a protruding bit of skull or bone glinting coppery in the light.

_The Faceless are still wearing their masks._

Lily’s smart; she’s prepared. She grabs one of the wooden crossbow bolts from a pouch on her belt and hurls it forward with a vengeful war cry. Compared to the Feral it looks like nothing more than stick; about as effective as using a toothpick on the Hulk. But it holds up — just barely — enough to puncture flesh and sink the shaft all the way down until it reaches the heart.

The Feral spasms, tongue lolling flat between a gap in its teeth, and explodes in a cloud of ash.

It dissipates to reveal Jax, streaks of black across his face in splatters where ash clings and sticks to the viscous blood. He looks like hell.

If the way he looks at her is anything to go by, Nadya doesn’t look much better.

“What the hell are you idiots doing still here?!” He snaps his fangs. “Get out, stick to the plan! Now! Go!”

Cadence’s arm wraps around Nadya’s waist, knocking whatever air is left out of her lungs. He tugs her back like she weighs nothing at all. “Can you move?” He asks, voice rough in her ear. She manages to wrench out a single nod.

“Good—come on.”

The rest of her senses start to come back as her hearing does. All around more and more of the grotesque crypt-Ferals flock to them. Some drop down from the rafters and chandeliers above. Others hover outside the ring of fire; teeth gnashing as they press and stumble over one another until one braves the flames enough to survive. Another follows. Then another. Then another.

_Way more than they thought. More than they could have imagined._

“No—no we can’t they —”

“Nadya.”

She looks up at Jax teary-eyed and shaking. He has to get it, right? He has to know they can’t go — they need to stay. The plan has to change because this…

_They can’t survive this._

“… Go.”

Like he’s proving a point he whirls around not a second later; cutting his sword in a wide arc right in the path of a thick grey neck that explodes into ash before the head even hits the ground.

Then everything is a blur in front of her eyes. Heat tickling at her legs and one second the ground is gone and the next its back but different. And there’s nothing to do but watch as shadows collide with one another while she’s stuck on the other side of the flames.

Turning her back on them is the hardest thing she’s ever had to do.

Scratch that. Every step after is _so much worse._

“Is it just the adrenaline high or is this place kind of… shaking?” asks Lily — not that any of them stop to actually check. If even Nadya can feel the vibrations underfoot (and she had thought that was pure nerves, so win some lose some) then she has no doubt that they’re real. But if they stop and even try considering them then they’ll just have another problem on their hands.

_What’s one more?_

Together the trio rounds the corner frantically; Nadya’s short legs can barely keep up with the death grip Cadence has on her wrist and there’s a few steps where she’s more of a skipping stone than a person. “S-Slow down!”

“Would if I could—”

“If you want the rest of me and not just my arm!”

The look he throws back her way isn’t just a glare. He’s actually sizing her up — and there’s not a doubt in Nadya’s mind that this would go a lot faster if he hauled her over his shoulder and kept going but that would mean they would escape faster. That would mean leaving their friends behind for good.

His long strides are just a bit shorter after that.

The portrait hall stares down at them a whole different kind of creepy like this. Devoid of faces familiar and not, no more witnesses staring them down like the jury of God. And in the blank spaces left Nadya can only see the equally blank canvas that was the Feral’s face.

“What happened to them?” Because she’s already lost most of her marbles and if she has to hear her own ragged, out-of-shape breath for another second the rest are sure to follow. “Why did—did it look like that?”

“Evolution, baby.” Lily answers humorlessly.

“You jest, but that’s the best answer. Left up here —” — they swing left before Cadence continues — “— Our senses are evolved by virtue of Turning regardless; but the identity of _vampire_ at it’s core is to be on a different evolutionary branch.”

“Less lecture, please!”

“Right— They didn’t need to see, even if they had the ability to. Which would explain why we didn’t attract them until we presence made some noise — I can’t even imagine how well they can see through their hearing.”

“Like a kind of echolocation?”

“Precisely.”

“Which makes them _actual vampire bats! Ha!”_ Lily barks a laugh but immediately slaps her hand over her open mouth. “Shit — do you think they heard —”

_“KKKKREEEEE!”_

Their high-pitched howling doesn’t even get to be called a warning. The sharp pain of the noise rattling around in her head long after several of them scamper into view; long nails biting down into the marble to propel them forward on all fours and in ways no humanoid body should move.

Because _that’s_ the most unsettling thing about all this, right.

Before she knows what she’s even doing Nadya’s clammy palm is slipping with sweat on the handle of Cadence’s switchblade; short little razor slightly dulled from cutting canvas wavering in front of her and all it takes is a blink — the Ferals are on them.

It’s a battle for dominance as three launch themselves in the air and tackle Cadence; snarling and growling and frothing at the fangs. They take turns between fighting him and fighting one another. Nadya chokes back a scream as she watches his head bounce against the stone floor — _skulls weren’t bouncy balls, skulls shouldn’t do that._

“Get behind me!” Lily shouts, nails digging sharp enough to bring Nadya back to reality. And just in time. Rough-hewn and sickly skin catching on the wool of her sweater and tugging just enough for her entire young life to flash before her eyes.

But there’s a difference between the tactile limestone tunnels and the sleek Manor halls. The Feral misjudges its own strength and speed and skids right on by until it collides with the space where a portrait of the young Lord Lafeyette himself had been but an hour ago. The gold-plated wooden plaque barely dents the thing’s head before it clatters to the ground and splinters into chunks.

Lily holds her crossbow at the ready with all the conviction of a seasoned hunter. She circles Nadya, keeps herself one step in front at all times, and knows just enough about First-Person Shooters not to fire while the beast is down. Not when its thrashing limbs wound have easily batted a measly wooden bolt far off and where it wouldn’t do a lick of good.

Large head whipping around, the Feral shakes out from its stupor and looks _right at them._ Which, given the fact that it has _no freakin’ eyes_ is an act made ten- _thousand_ times more unnerving.

Off to their side Cadence sends one flying with a powerful kick. Their pursuer doesn’t even so much as flinch the other way. Its honed in on them now; using Nadya’s blood like a beacon. “Lil’…” smacking Lily’s arm again and again; her wavering voice shouldn’t be used to measure her faith in the young vampire but it’s sure getting close, _“Lily…!”_

“Not… yet…”

Serpentine nostrils like slits flare; drool dripping from lips long-ago eaten away in a thick translucent stream underfoot.

_“Lilyyy….”_

_“I said not — yet —…”_

_“What are you waiting for, the whites of its eyes?!”_

Her scream sends the Feral surging forward.

_“SKRRREEE—!”_

Lily squeezes two fingers on the rusted trigger. All their hopes and prayers and their very lives _and_ the fate of the human race held by a centuries’ old spring.

Thin wood echoes as it clatters to the floor. Nadya opens her eyes to see the fiery resolve burning in Lily’s blood-red eyes… and her crossbow caked in a fresh layer of ash.

“— thank you.” Though even Nadya notices her words aren’t heavy with the relief she expected to speak them with. Lily can hear it, too. Which is probably what makes the arm she slings around Nadya’s neck and the kiss pressed hard at her temple so much worse.

“Always.”

The tension breaks when someone turns the volume back up on the world around them. Just in time too, as Cadence lets out a raw, _angry_ scream of frustration. Pupils in thin black slits as he manages to grasp one Feral by the back of the neck just enough to twist and see them; standing there, perfectly unharmed, and very selfishly not offering helping hands.

“A little assistance would be _fucking wonderful,_ if you get a moment!”

And there’s nothing like fighting for your life to justify repressing your emotions. Together the girls spring into action. Lily decides to ‘waste not’ and scoops the same bolt up to reload and crank the crossbow mechanism. It gives Nadya the chance to slide out and around her, to dive for the broken plaque all scratched up from the fall and pry out a nicely stake-sized hunk of the wooden backing.

The taller vampire manages to scramble to his knees and pin one of his attackers in a headlock; thrashing around like a supernatural rodeo champion. Lily traces the path of them in the air, one eye squinting closed and her tongue peeking pink between her lips. “Hold… it still…”

But when he realizes what she’s doing, Cadence blanches with a whole other kind of fear. _“Don’tyoudare!”_ His voice cracks with protest; and in a last desperate act he whips the Feral captive with the rest of his weight right in Nadya’s path.

“Well I gotta—!” She watches him with bewilderment, but luckily there’s more than one thing that needs shooting at. _“Ah hell, come get some!”_ And she sends the bolt soaring down the end of the hall, proving long-range is her specialty when it punches a fatal hole in the stunned Feral’s sternum.

Cadence’s glare burns a hole right through her. “I can’t —hold it-long—Nady—a!” The mounting pressure tightens in her chest. If the Ferals don’t kill her the panic surely will.

Any longer and he’ll slip; already the Feral’s lashing limbs have a wider reach than they did mere seconds ago. With one final burst of effort Cadence reaches up and hooks his grasp under the creature’s jaw; sharp teeth sinking farther than they should and dripping sticky black blood down the vampire’s shaking arm.

“Just do it!”

So she does. Nadya forces down the panic and keeps her eyes wide open and rushes forward with the stake held high all in one swift movement — because she has to.

And she still misses?

In an ‘Instant K.O.’ way, anyway. Which given the current circumstances is the only kind that matters in several opinions. But with all the force and adrenaline pumping through her veins Nadya manages to plunge the jagged end deep in the meat of the Feral’s shoulder. It throws back its deformed head with a howling cry. Pain, anger — whatever keeps it going as it renews its efforts to break free

Red drips from the corners of Cadence’s lips; his fangs goring two deep holes in his bottom lip. He struggles with his free hand to grasp onto the makeshift weapon; tries and fails several times before he manages a blood-stained hold strong enough to pry it free and aim just a little bit lower.

All at once the Feral crumbles in his hands in a thin ashen wave. The weight of the creature vanishes in an instant and sends Cadence off-balance; lets him collapse to the ground with blackened fingernails grasping for purchase on the smooth marble.

 _Wait—_ “Where’s the third?!” Nadya looks around wildly, Lily’s crossbow already seconds from being loaded, when Cadence coughs at their feet.

“Tore…” he holds up one shaking hand, black and crimson stains already dry and cracking where his limbs bend, “it… we’re fine…”

She doesn’t ask. One look shared with Lily — neither of them really want to figure out how that sentence ends. They’re alive— _for now_ —and that’s all she wrote.

But just before Lily can reach out a hand to help the other vampire up, Nadya throws her arm out to hold her back. Can they blame her?

“… Are you…?” _You?_

He grunts, mostly unconvincing, but there’s none of that displaced confusion lingering on his face and they’ve really wasted too much time… so they both offer Cadence an arm and haul him up with no small effort.

“We need… come on —” 

With silent agreement Nadya and Lily stay on either side of him as he puts one foot in front of the other. Every staggering step is a little steadier — and by the time they abandon the carnage of the portrait hall for the entry of the Manor most of his broken bones have settled back into place.

In the middle of the foyer stand Jax, Adrian, and Serafine. One torch shared between them; flickering orange glow only hinting at the sheer mess of inky black smeared across their faces and stained deep into their clothes. If she’s being honest (and didn’t know the context) it’s almost a laughable sight. They look a little like they just went a couple rounds in the ring with a giant squid.

But boxing squids aside — they look _alive._ They _are_ alive. And the relief of that is possibly a little more than her fragile ticking heart can take just now but that proves _she’s still alive too._

_Maybe they might just get through this after all._

“Took you guys long enough,” Jax feels the need to comment; and none-too kindly for that matter, “thought we were gonna have to go back in the thick of this haunted hellhouse to find where you’d gone.”

He glances up quick — doesn’t let his glance linger. But that short time is all Nadya needs to know that — in his own strange way — he’s glad to see them. Possibly a little more glad because it’s starkly clear nobody is the winner of the “Who Didn’t Get Feral Gore On Themselves” challenge.

Adrian throws a glare over his shoulder — silently judging Jax for his choice of affectionate comments — before he’s across the room in a blurred instant. Hands on Nadya’s upper arms, looking her up and down and over for cuts, wounds, _bites…_ anything.

“We’re fine too, thanks for asking,” muses Lily with no malice whatsoever. Adrian looks between the pair of vampires, clearly remorseful, but they’ve been through this enough times for the habit to form. _Make sure the fragile little human isn’t broken anywhere they can see_ and all that.

Cadence nods; looks to the pair behind him with a furrowed brow. “How did you guys manage?” But obviously Serafine won’t answer; he’s not a fool. “Surely you didn’t take on the entire horde.”

Jax reaches up and gives his trusty katana a few pats of praise. “They weren’t actually much trouble in the thick of it. Most of ‘em were pretty scrawny.”

“And those that braved the fire only did so out of starvation, which meant they were easily deposed,” adds Serafine and to everyone’s surprise, “I’ve never seen such malformations, not in all my years.”

Cadence nods. “Lily and I discussed much the same. Likely they evolved with stronger senses than others. After all what use is keen sight if there’s nothing but darkness to see?”

“But evolution is a process spanning millennia; longer even.”

“Turning is a kind of evolution.”

Serafine’s jaw ticks. She folds her arms tight across her chest. “Becoming Feral wasn’t the Turning for many of these creatures.”

“Maybe not, but think about how long they’ve been down here. The surface was sealed off to them before we arrived. The only way their numbers could have stayed at a level consistent with the volume of infected left behind during your purge would be through cannibalism-as-survival.”

_“Your purge.”_

And just like that the tension is back. A heavy curtain; or one really big-freakin’-boulder to roll uphill. When Adrian is certain she’ll live (because taking her word for it means very little apparently) he looks back to see the Serafine from the ballroom starting to peek through the cracks.

She bristles at Cadence’s sudden silence. _“Your purge,”_ she repeats, “not mine. Everything that happens here and until we reach the surface is but another domino to fall in a game _you_ started; in a game _you_ abandoned when it no longer suited you!”

“Does it look like now is the time for this shit?” Jax looks ready to slap his sticky black hand over her mouth if she raises her voice again. But Serafine’s anger doesn’t abate until Adrian does the unthinkable — and _agrees._

“You said you’d wait until we got back to Paris.”

“And give him the satisfaction of escaping justice a second time?”

“I told you the unusual circumstances.”

“And _I_ told _you_ of his golden tongue; always with the excuses, never held accountable!”

Adrian looks back over his shoulder; an invitation for Cadence to speak in his own defense. But just like before he stays quiet. Only now Nadya knows there’s nothing left in the puzzle to figure out. He just doesn’t want to see the picture the pieces make. 

But whether there was more for Adrian to say in his defense or not, the sight of Serafine standing before him, distressed in ways he can’t make better, leaves him speechless. A single tear rolls down her cheek. Her trembling hand cups his jaw firm but tender.

 _“I nearly lost you back there,_ mon amour. _If you had died, centuries later in an aftermath you never should have seen…”_ But that’s all she can get out, the rest of her confession too thick to budge in her throat. So instead she just… sighs.

“He cannot be trusted.”

“Then don’t trust him. Trust me.”

The pair pull away, Serafine eying Nadya with confusion. Even she doesn’t know exactly _why_ she said it to be honest. Why she came to his defense when the guy couldn’t even pull his pants up enough to do it himself.

But even covered in dark blood smelling of rot, hair matted on one side and out of place, looking at Serafine like some part of him is regretting not shoving her into the fire himself… Nadya doesn’t see any of that.

She just sees the man huddled together. Begging for ignorance.

_If I can’t have it… maybe he can for the both of us._

“You don’t know what you’re talking about, Nadya.” The vampiress puts a real effort in keeping her tone level. “The thing you have witnessed in the memories of Gaius Augustine are depraved to be sure, but to be _that man_ is to be…”

“A monster?”

Serafine’s eyes go wide.

“You have already…?”

Nadya shakes her head. “No, and I don’t… I don’t want to. What I _want_ is to get out of here. Alive, if that’s still on the table. But the more time we waste arguing over this—over any of it—the closer they get. Remember them —” she jabs a finger back to the depths of the Manor, “— the giant stampede of _literal_ feral Feral vampires we’ve only dented the numbers of? Because I do. _I do, and it’s something I’ll never be able to forget._

“You’re gonna stand there and accuse a good man of being a monster well _reality check, Serafine, I’ve been one of them!_ I’ve been the thing _you fear — the thing all vampires fear becoming!_ And it’s worse than you—any of you—can even begin to imagine! It is evil! It is dark! It is—!”

It’s anger. Untethered—directionless—senseless. Emptiness in her belly her own insides eating themselves alive from the craving. From the void where the mind once was where the heart once was where the soul once was but no longer none of it — none of it any longer.

Replaced everywhere, with everything. Everything is violence — craving — salivating jaws and the old familiar taste of soured blood begging for something new. Begging for the thing pounding in the spaces where her ears should be; the hasty _thump-thump-thump-thump_ of a fresh beating heart.

And Nadya’s drowning in it so deep she doesn’t even understand the words that come out of her own mouth.

“It’s staring down right at me.”

 _Not a metaphor._ Something they all learn hard, and fast, but none of them more than Nadya as something as heavy as a semi-truck _slams_ down onto her from above. A thousand-and-one pounds knocks the air from her lungs. Forces her cry of _surprise—pain—confusion—primal glee_ into nothing more than a whisper of a thing.

Compared to the hulking, rippling grey scrambling long claws on the floor trying to catch her like a bar of soap in the shower, _she_ is nothing but a whisper of a thing.

_“NADYA!”_

Five long daggers sink into her side and tear a scream out of her in chunks.

_“GET OFF HER—”_

_“—JAX YOU NEED T—”_

_“I CAN’T I’LL—”_

She’s flopping around on the ground in the most undignified way; a worm after a storm, or a fish out of water. The pain is almost enough to blind her _but part of her doesn’t need her eyes anyway—hasn’t needed them in a long longlong time_ but she keeps moving, keeps making it harder for the Feral to pin her down and pluck its favored parts of the meal of her body.

What is she doing? This is it. This is the end. She feels it in sticky blood pooling on the floor and more pressure bearing down on top of her, on top of her killer. 

Hands willing to pull every grotesque grey limb from the Feral’s body before they let it succeed. The same hands that should watch out — need to be careful — one wrong move and a shallow cut and it’s all over for them and _no no she can’t lose them like this she can’t lose Adrian can’t lose Lily can’t lose Jax lose Serafine lose Cadence lose herself like this!_

Adrian’s rising panic; _“Hold it still—Lily duck!”_ would be gone forever.

Lily’s vibrant energy; _“Get—off—of—her—you—crazy—bitch!”_ would be gone forever.

Nadya can see them just out of reach; through teary eyes and tasting her own blood coppery and gurgling at the back of her throat. But it’s too thick; she chokes on it. Feels the Duchess’ weight heave itself onto her just as she tries— _one last try god dammit_ —to warn them of the figure towering behind their backs.

She squeezes her eyes shut and waits for it to _just happen already._ Though after one second, and two more, death still feels oddly like bleeding out and being pinned underneath the Feral’s foul breath. _Well that sucks._

When she opens them again — cautious and prepared for the last glimpse of snarling death in her face — it’s just in time for the top half of the Feral’s head to go flying off into the darkness.

Razor-like teeth jut upwards out of what remains of the lower jaw. With nothing keeping it moored the creature’s tongue falls out, thick and reeking of decay, right on top of Nadya’s face. Bile immediately burns at the back of her throat but she swallows it down burning and all for the courage to bat the wet appendage as far away from her as humanly possible.

What comes next is arguably beginning to be her favorite part of all this life-threatening chaos; the weight quite literally lifted from her chest as solid muscle and malformed bone quickly dissipate and coat Nadya in a thick film of silky ash.

Adrian and Lily are on their knees at her side before she knows it. Words muffled and not-quite English in the high-pitched ringing of her ears. Hands pulling her up, pressing hard against her wound and the pain is enough to make her cry out in a wailing groan.

“—ome on, come on you can do it Nadi’.” Lily tries—and fails—to hide just how much her voice is shaking.

Adrian isn’t much better. “Feel that?” Another sharp press to her side and sweat beads down her temples. “I know it hurts Nadya — I know and I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. But you have to keep pressure on it, alright? Do you understand me?”

He waits for her answer; seconds of agony. “Nadya if you understand me, can you squeeze my hand?” It slides into hers, sticky skin but like a cool drink in the desert. And it makes Nadya want nothing more than to lean into the bliss of it and take a really… long… nap…

Instead, she squeezes.

“Good,” he sighs with audible relief, “good job. Hold on, okay? Just… _please,_ hold on.”

All of a sudden the foyer is filled with the echoing noise of metal-on-metal; loud _clangs_ bouncing off of one another and the walls and quickly joined by a familiar cacophony of ear-piercing screams.

Jax’s eyes widen. “That would be the —”

“Yeah dude we got it —” snaps Lily, _“— we gotta go.”_

The floor is literally swept out from under her feet as Adrian picks Nadya up effortlessly; her body a little too frail for either of their tastes. Her read rolls around, the throbbing in her temples unsure whether to keep tempo with the pots and pans scattered through the connecting halls to serve as a warning or the angry squawking of the Ferals who didn’t look where they were running.

Blurry though they are, she can see the outline of worry lines creasing unfamiliar on Adrian’s face… the bushy bob of Serafine’s head already halfway down the Manor’s front path and the sharp cut of black of Jax’s katana sheath swung over his back… Ropes of purple as Lily walks backwards with her crossbow at the ready but always by her side…

_Someone’s missing._

She’s not stupid; she keeps the rough fabric of Adrian’s jacket against her bleeding side. But she shifts once, twice, enough for him to stop to make sure he doesn’t drop her. “She’s noticed.”

Lily hisses under her breath. “Shit, Nadi’ we don’t —”

“C-Cade…”

“— just let us take care of you, I promise —”

“Wh-Where…”

Like he was waiting for Nadya’s cue, the blond vampire steps into her line of sight. He stares down at her, face unreadable through his red eyes and lips pursed into a thin line. He raises a grey-stained hand up to her face and Nadya flinches as a touch way too tender for the moment’s rising panic brushes away the stray hairs sticking to her forehead.

He looks so confused; so… lost. And she recognizes it for what it is.

“Will she live?” Cadence asks Adrian; and he waits until the last possible second to tear his eyes away from her pale face.

The hesitation his question gets is more than enough answer.

“No one man can take them all on.”

“I know.”

Nadya’s stomach nearly falls out of the gash in her side when she understands. He’s going to cover their escape into the tunnels.

“No—no you can’t…” _Kathy isn’t here to bring you back this time._

“Thank you for saving her.” Adrian’s voice grows rough with every word. Unspoken; _for saving her when I couldn’t — for_ doing _what I couldn’t._

Lily tries to offer Cadence the crossbow; he pushes the bow away with the tip of his finger and a silent shake of his head.

 _Blackouts._ That’s what Cadence had called them. But that’s not what it looks like; not from a bystander point of view.

 _Blank._ He’s gone blank everywhere except where it matters. Where he needs to draw on strength to fight. And it’s going to kill him.

“Nngh —” Another whimper pulls from the tip of Nadya’s tongue. She shifts as fast as she possibly can; maybe not fast enough. Shoves her elbow into her own middle to keep the jacket-compress against her wound just enough to free her hand up. Shaking fingers stained with her own blood — Nadya reaches up for him with what might be all that’s left in her at the moment.

It isn’t until this moment that Nadya realizes, almost comically, just how large Cadence’s hands are compared to hers. Fingers and palm enveloping her in an easy grasp. It would be a sweet gesture if he didn’t look so confused as he did it.

“Do what you — _wheeze_ — need to… live.” She digs her nails into the meat of his palm. “Swear it.”

A twitch of his dark brow. “I swear… on my life.”

Digging harder, harder until she feels his skin yield and bleed. “Swear on something that matters to you,” she demands. Nadya doesn’t know where the words come from; only that they exist outside of her. They aren’t hers; but she needs to say them. She’s the only one who can.

Nothing between them changes, but Nadya can feel it. And maybe she’ll come to regret this in the next ten minutes or the next ten hours… but you can’t fix something if it’s gone forever. This way… they all have a chance.

They have a chance because the monster in front of her makes a choice.

“I swear on their lives.”

Without another word the taller vampire pulls away; doesn’t spare a glance for Adrian for Lily or the two gone ahead. He just turns on his heel and stalks back the way they had come.

Nadya can’t even muster up the energy to wipe her tears.

 _“Go.”_ She whispers up to Adrian, and holds on tightly as the three of them rush out of the King’s Manor without looking back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You know, I keep saying _"and here we go..."_ but it never stops being relevant and necessary. Because here. we. go. 
> 
> There are 5 chapters left after this... and wow are they a wild ride. As always, comments and critique would be amazing. Especially as I've gotten hardcore into my own version of events now. Thank you for reading!


	28. The Perils

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With Nadya moments away from bleeding out, their escape from the underground City of Shadows is a little pressed for time. But there is one last secret to be discovered before they leave... and this is something nobody could have seen coming.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **note:** Enjoy an early update! I wanted to do something for Halloween but time got away from me and I wasn't able to finish the project I had in mind in time, so I figured an early chapter update would have to suffice. This is probably one of the biggest and scariest chapters in the book... so it's fitting I suppose! Have a happy _(and safe)_ Halloween!
> 
> **content warnings:** language, violence, blood, blood-drinking, gore, descriptions of violent acts, serious injury, dark themes, dissociation, trauma, hallucinations, depictions of monstrous behavior

_They have to keep moving._   


Whatever the true identity of the man they left behind, he’s bought them some time. And she refuses to let that be something they waste.

Every few corners they stop and another wrist is pressed to Nadya’s pale lips. Only enough blood to keep her going, to keep her body from going into shock… and worse. But they can’t keep it up forever. She knows they are just as weak — and getting weaker with every cut.

Every time she blinks it feels like more and more time passes. Minutes to hours. Hours to decades. Decades to eternities. And in between…

_Blink._

They’re higher up, somewhere. She can’t taste the mist from the waterfall anymore.

_Blink._

The walls are too tight around them. They’re suffocating her. She opens her mouth to try and mention it. No sound comes out. _Oh well,_ she thinks, _they probably already know._

_Blink._

Even though his coat she can feel the warmth of him. Old and familiar, skin leathery from age. They pull away from one another and she can’t help the way her chin turns down slightly at the look in Gerard’s eyes. He cups her cheek in a touch somehow both fragile and strong.

“It has been an honor serving you all these years, Lady Kamilah.”

“The honor was all mine.”

“Ha,” he laughs; deep lines crinkling around the corners of his eyes, “should I be so lucky. Perhaps this is not the end for us, though.”

She purses her lips; keeps the truth in the dark where it belongs. She’s never been one to humor the impossible. But she does, now. And she knows exactly why.

“If I may…”

He tucks the dark curtain of her hair behind her ear. Such an intimate, affectionate gesture. One they’ve never crossed the boundaries of before now. There’s a first time for everything.

His hand falls. She lets her ancient eyes roam over every inch of his face. _When did his age show so prominently? How many years ago?_

“I know the likes of mortals like myself cannot even begin to fathom what you’ve seen. But we see equally bewildering things, I think. And in all my years at your side I have never seen such a change in you as I have when _she_ is at your side.

“Change isn’t always a terrible thing, Lady Kamilah. I dare say I enjoy the person you are becoming around her.”

She reaches up, watches her own thin fingers brush the glittering tear from his cheek.

“Goodbye, old friend.”

He smiles.

“Until we meet again.”

_Blink._

“How long do you think we have?”

This close to his face, she has no trouble hearing Adrian’s teeth grind together.

“I don’t know. Not much.”

Something dark moves out of the corner of her eye. “None of it matters anyway if she keeps leaving a trail for them to follow.”

“That’s not her fault.”

“I know that, but… _shit—she’s awake.”_

Both of their faces swim into view. Adrian’s concern — Jax’s sore attempt at a disarming little smile. “Hey there Nadya,” he says softly, “you’re doing great. Hang in there, okay? Just hang on.”

_Blink._

Cold stone digs into her back. She just wants to sleep… why won’t they let her sleep?

“It’s not working!”

“Then try again!”

“How about instead of just _standing there_ telling me all the shit I’m doing wrong, _you_ do it yourself!”

Jax snarls. “Don’t you da—”

The wall behind Nadya’s head shakes dangerously as a fist collides with the rock. “Both of you, cease this senseless arguing! None of us are in a condition to give her the blood she needs to heal properly. Our only chance is getting to the surface — a feat we cannot do divided!”

 _Serafine’s right guys,_ Nadya wants to say; and if she could she’d smack the both of them for jumping down each other’s throats now of all times, _we have to keep moving._

_We have to keep…_

_… no time…_

_She’s still… out there…_

_Blink._

“F—Forgive me, my King! The next one won’t fail!”

“There won’t be a _next one,_ Cecil. You had one chance to prove the worth of your men, and it went much as I predicted.”

“But he—he _found them!”_

A haughty snort between her parted lips. “I have known _where_ they are from the moment they fled. There is only one person alive who has earned the trust of both my Queen and my Soldier. It was never about finding the hole they crawled into, Cecil.”

Valdas comes up from her side, a tense and unreadable expression set in his jaw. Always the enigma, her first failure.

“Then what was your end, my King, if not to find them?”

She leans back in her throne and crosses her legs one over the other. Pride swelling in her belly, burning bright with a fire she had never forgotten. _Her_ fire; proof She was still out there, somewhere, and that She could be brought back.

“Your impertinence aside, Valdemaras… how else was I to see her progress for myself? And _my… how she has progressed. My little Bloodkeeper.”_

_Blink._

The scent calls to her. Vibrant; alive. Pushes her through the pain, the breaks in her bones and blood oozing from her skull. It will all be worth it in the end.

_THERE._

Inhaling deeply. Drinking it in through the musk of earth of death of things she’s known and conquered already. One gleaming little jewel in the center of it all.

She drags her tongue along the ground. Feels her prize bloom in tastes she’s never known… or maybe long forgotten. A beacon in the dark. So delicious it’s divine; and very much worth swallowing all the other foul things underfoot.

_More—more moremoremoreneedmoremusthavemore—_

There.

She takes off down the maze of darkness. Must get there before the others. Can hear them scrambling, desperate, _starving._ But it is _hers._

And it is close.

_Blink._

Nadya’s hand shoots up and curls around the dark, sticky fabric of Adrian’s shirt.

“She’scoming.”

He skids to a halt; the exact opposite of what they need to be doing. Looks down at her with wide eyes and pinpricks of tears that drip warm onto her cheeks. He’s been carrying her for so long. But they have so much longer to go.

“Serafine—”

She’s at his side before he even finished calling for her. Paler than Nadya remembers; dark circles under her eyes ringing of her weariness. “Welcome back to us, _petit,”_ but the smile she gives down to Nadya is filled with strain, “come, Adrian, set her down.”

He does so with obvious reluctance, but Nadya’s deja vu says it all. This is how they’ve been getting around for god knows how long. He cradles the back of her head with a cupped palm to soften the hard stone holding her up. Jax and Lily flank them, facing either side of the tunnel with weapons in hand.

Not that she would call herself an expert, but Nadya’s certain she knows enough about vampires now to know that there shouldn’t be any evidence of even so much as a cut on their skin. But she can trace the thin red line on Serafine’s wrist as she trades her torch off to Adrian and moves to cut in the same place with her nail.

Unease makes itself a comfortable home in her gut. “Don’t…”

Adrian’s thumb brushes the small hairs at her temple. “It’s okay. Just a little bit more and you’ll be mostly healed…” but something hangs off the tip of his tongue; something he forces himself to swallow back down.

_You’ll be mostly healed on the outside._

“But you’re scarring.”

“And you are worth every mark.” Serafine punctuates her words with a thin, clean cut. She holds her arm out in offering, and only seems to notice then just how reluctant a fully-conscious Nadya _is_ to the whole thing.

“Your concern for us is appreciated, _petit._ But this is the only way. My blood is older. It will get you farther than were you to share among your friends.”

There’s no use in fighting them, is there? She doesn’t even have to ask — their matching expressions are more than enough of an answer. But that doesn’t stop Nadya from being reluctant on instinct as she grabs the offered limb with shaking hands and kisses the thin stream of blood before it can heal over.

The effect is immediate. She doesn’t feel _stronger_ but she does feel sharper — less like the world could maybe-sorta-possibly be a dream and she has to decipher which parts are real and which aren’t. Everything about this is very much real; from the throbbing pain in her abdomen to the way Serafine seems to waver in place at the loss of more blood.

They haven’t fed properly in ages. They were never supposed to be down here this long. None of this was ever supposed to happen.

She takes only what she needs, and all but forces Serafine to take back her arm when she’s done. Judging by the sickly look on the woman’s face that was probably the last time Nadya will feel anything other than agony until they make it up to the surface… if that’s even still an option anymore.

Adrian helps her to stand and holds her through the sudden knee-knocking vertigo that drowns her in waves. “I’m okay… I’m okay.” She insists, but he doesn’t let go… and neither does she.

It feels like forever but Nadya finally finds the best way to breathe. Short and shallow breaths that barely feel like they’re getting her any air at all. “Do we even know if they _are_ following us?”

The vampires exchange uneasy glances.

Jax takes the bullet for them all. He sheathes his blade with a tiny click. “We were hoping you could tell us, actually.”

“Oh… right.” _That makes sense._

He shrugs. “He’s one guy, so I doubt Cade gave us much of a head start.”

Lily readjusts the strap of her crossbow and shrugs. “I dunno. I’ve seen what that guy can do when he’s… like that. Not to mention we all saw him tear that one’s face off without breaking a sweat.”

The memory comes over her like a breeze. The pain in her side bright enough to blind her. Rotten breath, the Feral descending on her in her last moments…

And then one large hand grabs the top of its jaws from behind and _tears_ upwards; the skull dissolved into ash before it ever hits the floor of the foyer. The body not far behind, and with Nadya still beneath it.

_“Do what you need to live.”_

_“I swear on my life.”_

_“Swear on something that matters to you.”_

_“I swear on their lives.”_

Nadya looks up to see Lily already staring her way. Like she was waiting for Nadya to come to the same conclusion.

_It wasn’t Cadence they left in the King’s Manor._

“None of that matters now,” Adrian’s terse tone jolts Nadya out of her thoughts, “not if we don’t find a way out of here. We can’t keep wandering aimlessly.”

“We aren’t.”

Serafine stands slowly. “These were the paths Gaius and Kamilah used to escape the Knights’ purge. If they used the path to the surface that I think they did, then we have a chance.”

“And if they didn’t?” Jax questions. Serafine’s look is all the answer any of them need.

“So where are we gonna find this path then?”

“We aren’t far from it,” she looks towards the darkness ahead, “Meandering through which tunnels have collapsed and which still stand has slowed us down, but if we are where I think we are, the Cathedral is not too far ahead.”

His eyebrow raises in (rightful) suspicion. “What _Cathedral?”_

* * *

It makes everywhere else — the splendor of the King’s Manor, the ethereal beauty of the cavern, the detail lovingly carved into every tunnel pathway — pale in comparison. Nadya has a hard time still believing they’re as far from the surface world as they are with the sprawling height of the ceilings; vaulted architecture stretching so high into the black it might as well be a second night sky. They walk the long aisle flanked on both sides by long pews of ornately carved wood. Seating enough for a thousand, maybe more.

But in truth the Cathedral is as beautiful as it is grotesque. Their flashlights send the shadows into hiding along the walls, and the sheer number of hollow-eyed skulls that beat witness to them could no doubt fill all the cemeteries in France… and then some.

Only there isn’t as much light between them as she’d prefer. Every movement makes her heart skip a beat.

“Don’t worry,” Serafine says; and a little too casual for Nadya’s comfort, “it is only the reflection on the glass windows.”

Lily huffs through her nose. “Who needs windows underground?”

“Windows serve higher purposes in places such as these.” The vampiress gestures for their flashlights to scatter far into the dark beyond. Sure enough glittering reds and different shades of gold twinkle high above them. This far it’s impossible to tell the picture the stained glass creates, but Nadya has a feeling she’s better off not knowing.

“I know this hall better than any other. The City may have been where I lived but this place, _Notre-Dame de l'Immortalité,_ was my home.”

Jax scuffs the toe of his boot along the thick red tapestry draped down the center aisle. “Just when I thought this place couldn’t get any more dramatic…”

“You mock our traditions only because you have never needed them. And for that, Jax Matsuo, you should consider yourself lucky.” Her fingertips trail the edges of the nearest pew. “It was so easy — especially in those dark times — to feel as if immortality was a wasted thing. To be granted such longevity only to spend it cowering among the unloved things in the world, never staying in one place long enough to truly embrace it as your own for fear of bringing the Knights down upon you… trying to find sense and reason in it was a fool’s quest.

“Then along comes an idea; more than that — a beacon of hope. Humans had been driven by their own theologies for centuries, was it so hard to believe we were unable to have our own? The belief that our suffering was not without purpose, the _hope_ that the First Vampire would some day return to us and bring upon the world a better age; it saved more than a fair few lives. My own included.”

Through her shallow breaths Nadya finds Adrian a few steps behind her. It’s a relief that he looks just as uncertain about Serafine’s impromptu sermon as she feels. After all… they had seen the First Vampire in action, hadn’t they? They had watched Her spin Gaius around Her finger like a golden thread; heard every honeyed word She spoke to Xenocrates in both truths and not-quite lies. To hear Her spoken of like this, and from someone they know—someone they respect—is an uneasy thing… and that’s putting it mildly.

Nadya wonders fleetingly if they should say something. _Maybe when we’re free from this hellhole._ Judging by the knowing in Adrian’s eye, he agrees.

“So you were, what, some kind of priestess in the Church of the First Vampire?” she asks instead. And doesn’t need to see the woman’s face to hear the wistful wanting in her voice.

“Of a sort.”

They wait… but she doesn’t elaborate. Because _that_ bodes well.

Serafine stops them at the end of the aisle, where a few short steps lead up to a wide dais upon which a stone altar rests ominous and ancient. Call it a _Church_ and a _Cathedral_ all they like — there’s nothing about that rust-stained slab that doesn’t scream _Hollywood-style Pagan Sacrificial Altar._

Which is nothing compared to the larger-than-life stone effigy looming over them on the other side.

Looking at the image of Rheya immortalized (ha, haha, oh boy puns are the only thing keeping her going right now) before them, Nadya doesn’t find it difficult to see Her as the benevolent Goddess that Serafine paints in her words. Somehow both unyielding and merciful; a cross between the Roman Goddess Athena and the Virgin Mary. And with such endless devotion put lovingly into every smooth curve and sharp definition of Her.

The kind of care and attention to detail only known by artists who bring their lovers to life through their work. All fifteen feet of Her painstakingly carved by one careful hand.

There’s something to be said for the love Gaius must have poured into this creation. Not all of those _somethings_ are good, per se, but they sure are… something.

“So where’s this _secret path_ of yours?” Jax cuts to the chase; every inch of him on edge. Enough to tear Serafine away from the statue, thankfully, to lay her torch on the altar and walk around to the other side with both palms braced on the limestone.

“The other side, if you would.” And Jax is more than ready — he chucks his flashlight to the ground carelessly and grabs for his side of the slab. Without ceremony the pair of vampires begin to heave the altar aside with no small amount of strain.

Nadya watches them like a hawk the whole time. She’s seen this kind of thing before — she knows this should be a piece of cake for Serafine on her own, but with Jax’s help even less effort than that. But she can see the way the slab resists them like a bucket of ice water dumped on her head.

They’re in this state — weakened, struggling, starving — because of her. Not entirely but at the very least.

She shifts from foot to foot but either way the aching in her side doesn’t abate. “If this has been here all this time… how come the Ferals haven’t found it?”

“There’s something to be said for mindless ferocity.”

“Even though they lived here once, too?”

Adrian rests a feather-light hand on her shoulder. “They don’t _think_ like we do. They don’t calculate or plan. They just… hunt.”

It takes everything in Nadya to bite off the argument on the tip of her tongue. She swallows it down dry; bitter with confusion. _They would know, after all._ So why does she feel like that’s not entirely the case here? It’s what they saw of the flocking numbers that were willing to brave the wall of fire in the ballroom for even the _chance_ at her blood. That’s more than enough evidence, right?

 _No,_ something fearful whispers through her ears, _it isn’t._

Nadya wraps her arms around herself; the motion shrugging Adrian away and out of her personal bubble.

“What’s wrong —” his eyes immediately going down to her middle, “— did your wound open up again?”

“No it’s not…”

Finally the slab begins to yield. A loud grinding of stone on stone that echoes all around them reminiscent of everything they just escaped. The growling of the horde returned to her ears just to make sure she doesn’t forget.

Like she ever could.

When Nadya tries to speak again she chokes at the sudden foul taste of dirt coating her tongue. _“Blegh…”_ — come on, shake it off — “I just can’t shake this feeling… like…”

“Once you’re healed and rested, I’m sure it’ll pass.”

And maybe there’s a truth in that. Not one solid enough for her to get a foothold on, though.

It isn’t until she suddenly tastes copper at the back of her throat that Nadya realizes she’s bitten through her cheek. It’s a sharp, stinging pain that doesn’t compare to her side in the slightest but somehow takes her mind off of it regardless. She presses her tongue at the cut and finds comfort in the ache of it. And in the salt and iron that dribbles over her tastebuds.

She knows this taste.

_Well sure, it’s your blood._

But somehow so much better.

_Better?_

It’s exactly what she was looking for. It’s why she’s here, looking down over the sloping curve of a bare stone shoulder. Fingertips pressing hard enough into the rock to keep her lodged in place and out of sight. Resisting every urge to lunge forward, down to the ground below, to feast on the bright beacon right at the source.

Serafine and Jax finally heave the slab over as far as it will go. The altar slides along unseen grooves and settles with a loud _thud._ The sight of a thick wooden hatch in all of its preserved glory is enough to spread relief through them all.

Well… _almost_ all.

By the time she looks up to the stone-Rheya’s face, sees the shadow where it flickers and stretches, and knows it for what— _for who_ —it truly is…

_Too late._

“BACK!”

She grabs for Lily because she’s closest. Grabs for her with all the strength she can muster (which isn’t much, that’s for sure) until she feels something snap hard in her side and holds on even through the pain of it because there’s no way _absolutely no freakin’ way_ she’s letting this _freakshow_ get her best friend.

The Duchess leaps down with an unforeseen agility, but there’s nothing _agile_ about the hard collision of her into the marble of the chapel floor. Shrapnel and dust kick up; Nadya tears one hand from Lily to try and shield her eyes from the glossy shards and feels them score up her arm leaving it bare and bleeding.

The real terror of it all is how _quiet_ the Feral moves. How she bats Jax away with the back of a large greying claw like he’s a fly and sends him tumbling off into the pews nearest the altar. The wood _crunches_ and splinters under his weight — chunks of it lodging themselves in his skin. He cries out, angry and wounded, and tries to stand on a leg that _should not_ be bent the way it is.

But she’s a persistent creature. His pain means nothing to her because Nadya is _right there_ and even without eyes she knows the creature hasn’t looked away from her once from the moment she was in the Duchess’ sights. She stalks forward on two feet; nothing like the crawling, galloping movements of her lessers.

“Now!”

Serafine’s cry comes out of nowhere; she and Adrian moving in on the Duchess as they move in swift sync to come at her from either side of the altar. For a fraction of a heartbeat Nadya fools herself into having hope. But the good thing about how quickly it disappears is how little disappointment is left behind.

With a high-pitched howl the Feral snatches Serafine and catches her midstrike. Muscles coiled, tensing before the vampiress is hurled over the Feral’s head and straight into Adrian before he has the chance to stop the collision. The pair cry out together, voices choked as they tumble back into the altar in a tangle of limbs. The stone corner chips and crumbles, and Nadya can’t do anything but watch as they fall still.

_No no… no no no… oh god no…_

Nadya stumbles back, clutching at the fresh warmth and wetness seeping through her sweater. Tears in her eyes her own freaking blood on her tongue and she and Lily are having a dumb stupid idiotic _tug of war_ to see who can stand in front of the other and she’s going to lose her god damn mind—!

“You stay behind me, you got that?” Lily pulls back the loading spring on the crossbow; but the shaking hand that nestles the bolt into place betrays her. “No matter what, Nadya, you stay behind me.”

“Like hell I will, Lily Spencer.”

But she presses on. _“Nadya,”_ voice cracking, “I mean it!”

“Like I don’t!”

Are they really arguing with each other, neither daring to look away from the Duchess with every hulking _thump_ -ing step she takes towards them? They sure are. Because if they were going to go out together then they sure as hell were gonna go out arguing. It was inevitable.

A lot of things about them are inevitable.

If there was another point Lily wanted to make she doesn’t — swallowing it down instead.

“So much for _mindless killers,_ huh.”

“Just our luck.”

Because even without a real face there’s a keen intelligence to the Duchess that the other Ferals lost a long time ago. Nadya can’t explain how she knows, she just _does._ She doesn’t need eyes to be looking _right at them._ She hasn’t stopped — not from the moment she tasted Nadya’s blood in the tunnels. Maybe even further back than that.

From the moment Nadya touched her mind; her memories. Memories that _should_ have been long gone. Centuries gone, in fact. Wasted away into nothing until the only thing left was the carnal hunger and bloodlust. But that’s just not the case. _Something_ had remained; something that had been reaching out into the never-ending dark for centuries until Nadya just happened to be right in the path of its razor-sharp claws.

The Duchess opens her maw… but nothing comes out. No shriek, growl, or hissing gnashing grind of fangs. She just stands there, tall and straight-laced at the back just like the woman Nadya had seen berating the Marquis back in the King’s Manor. Every bit the monster the rest of the horde were… but in some ways not entirely a monster at all.

“Nngh…” Not even fully understanding the _why_ herself, Nadya pries her hand away from her abdomen. The pain comes in another crashing wave and leaves her doubling over, hunched practically in half, and Lily takes her chance to step out in front with her weapon armed and aimed and a look in her too-human eyes Nadya can’t say she’s ever seen before.

It’s a scary look, in truth. Too much conviction. Too much sacrifice.

“Lily… s-stop…” _I’m not going to tell you twice._

And Lily — god — she _laughs._ A soft thing; too soft for a moment like this. But the familiarity of it helps… even if only a little bit.

“It’s what I came here to do, remember? Save the girl saving the world.”

“Lil’…”

“Yeah?”

“I’m gonna kk-kill your girlfriend for s-sayin’ that.”

“No. You’re gonna tell her I love her.”

“Do it yourself…”

She risks both of their lives to reach back blindly for Nadya’s hand. Between what feels like holding her guts inside and the slick smears of blood on her other hand Nadya doesn’t want to take it — doesn’t want the literal last thing Lily feels (except not, because this isn’t happening god dammit) to be her best friend’s blood on her hands.

She takes it anyway. Because even if it isn’t happening it’s the sentiment that counts.

The world is starting to blur at the edges. Nadya’s acutely aware of the fact that the side of her sweater is now soaked with her own blood — whatever last bit of blood Serafine had given her was now pretty much a waste.

_So much for older blood._

_Old blood…_

It’s bitter pain — quite literally suffering for suffering’s sake because nothing about this makes sense but when has that ever stopped her before — when Nadya pries her grip from her wound and sucks her fingertips between pale lips.

One second Nadya’s having an epiphany and the next there’s a crossbow bolt sticking out of the Duchess’ middle. Nobody’s perfect — and firing a digital medieval weapon is definitely a lot easier than firing a real one.

But the wound is shallow and you know what they say about poking the bear. Something like a frown twitches where the Feral’s forehead used to be; which is way too casual of a reaction to being shot for either of their comforts.

She reaches down and wraps an open-fingered touch around the wooden shaft; pries it free and lets it drop to the ground underfoot before _crunching_ it under her heel. Only a tiny hole in the creature’s rippling middle left to tell the story. Black ooze drips in a thin trail down her leg.

“You creepy bitch. Fuck _y—!”_

In an unnatural blur the Feral rushes forward — several paces away and then just… _not._ Then the Duchess has long talons digging into the rounds of Lily’s cheeks; blood sliding down like glossy red tears.

She lifts Lily high up in the air between them. Until not even the steel tips of her boots can scrape the stone floor. But this time is different from the others — this time isn’t a flick of the wrist that sends Lily flying off into the dark like just another obstacle in the way.

This time the Feral stares. She _thinks;_ she _decides._

She wrenches Lily’s arm hard enough for something to crack inside near her shoulder. But not even splintering bone is enough to mask the wailing scream that tears from Lily’s throat when serrated teeth sink deep and ruinous into her shoulder.

_“ L I L Y ! ”_

Limbs flailing, convulsing, the body’s innate scramble for survival with every ounce of energy it has left but no matter how much it tries nothing will ever be enough. The Duchess’ fangs crunch thick and wet through Lily’s muscle; holding on to her through the whole show.

Even as Nadya feels herself shatter into a million pieces at the sight she can feel it deep in her soul; a ragged truth.

_The monster is enjoying this._

_This; the pain she’s causing._

_She’s savoring it._

The convulsions take a rapid turn for the worse. Every movement weaker than the last, weaker than those, until Lily manages one last twitch… and falls still. Before Nadya can even reach out to try and hold her in place she’s being thrown aside like nothing at all. One lazy movement and Lily’s head collides hard with the outer panel of the nearest pew.

Nadya’s hands fly to her mouth — she chokes back her scream while the rest of her body wars between _I have to help her_ and _don’t let the terrible monster out of your sights._

Fear keeps her frozen in place while Lily is already left, forgotten; slumped down with her head hanging and blood pouring dark and slick from the gnarled, gaping wound displayed proudly.

A prideful woman’s victory.

_“Grrrrrkkh…”_

The entire cathedral is so painfully—achingly _still._

The back of her heel collides with the door and Nadya presses back flush against it without thinking. She’s already cornered, what good—or bad—will it do whether she does or not? This close she swears she can smell her own blood on the peeling remains of the Duchess’ lips. This close there are a lot of things she has no choice but to take in all at once. 

The rotted, sharp smell of her blood and the wound already clenching closed. The drool in a long strand between two of her bottom teeth. But nothing is as prominent as the way Nadya finally realizes what she had thought was the mottled press of random scars on one side of her disfigured face isn’t such at all.

She recognizes the eye-catching detail and personal complexity of the Duchess’ mask bulging under the ashen flesh. The metalwork is still there, perfectly preserved at the boundaries of her skull in loops and even a hollow space at the tip where a setting is missing its gemstone. The last physical remnants of the woman who once looked down on the Marquis, on his entourage, from coy eyes and a lilted smile behind her folding fan.

The Feral leans forward; so close Nadya could sneeze and the tip of her nose would touch one of the ridges of the mask. It takes her in utterly; scents her sour fear, the salt on her tears; the blood in her cheek.

 _“HHh—rghkk-kt…”_ The large head twitches, head cocked. The low growl like a constant humming in Nadya’s ears.

The sight in front of her echoes beside the one in Nadya’s mind’s eye. Too horrible, too tragic; she closes her eyes because beautiful things are a far more preferable thing to see at the end.

Or… that’s the lie she tells herself. That’s okay, though. The universe may not listen like it should but it knows the truth for them both.

Kamilah’s lips are soft and sure on Nadya’s clammy forehead. They kiss away her tears on her closed eyelids; collect the droplets clinging dangerously to her eyelashes. They aren’t a memory — that’s what eases her heart the most.

The rasping, snarling words spoken through teeth drenched in Lily’s blood isn’t a memory either.

_“Em…’ty…”_

Her eyes fly open; heart finding impossible ways to race impossibly faster. And that isn’t even the chiefest of impossibilities happening right now.

“What… did you say?”

_“Em…tee… I—m…em’teey…”_

She sees it with her own eyes and still has a hard time believing it. Every piece of the monster in front of her unchanged, unyielding in its _otherness_ but the mouth does move, the tongue does curl and let pinkish drool stain its chin. The Duchess— _the Feral_ —is _speaking to her._ An act so against… everything natural, against _nature itself._ Aberrant; like the act is heralding the end of days.

In the flood of everything those half-formed words bring out into the world the one Nadya doesn’t expect is how _angry_ it makes her. Another secret, another _darkness_ forced on her. Forced on her friends; forced on _Lily._

Lily who just wanted to pay her rent and eat her pizza and spent her free time crushing video games and the patriarchy. Who once drunkenly told Nadya she wished she had had the guts to change her major before leaving college; who saw an anxious and broke small-city young woman who couldn’t afford the rent and offered her the room anyway.

Lily who ignored her dirty dishes and had a computer hoarding problem; who either took her coffee black but gritty with sugar and died just because she _knew_ Nadya and decided to spend her immortality _helping other people_ because she finally had the power to _do something_ about the things wrong with the world and didn’t hesitate to call Nadya out on her shit for being blind to it.

Lily who should have stayed behind with the love of her life but instead was here, suffering an unthinkable fate, because of the best friend she’d die for.

This _mindless evil_ wasn’t _mindless_ at all. 

Just evil.

That’s the world they live in; the reality Nadya sees in the creature in front of her and has no choice but to accept. So she does; and feels nothing but relief in the weight that lifts off of her shoulders.

“You’re empty.”

The Duchess bares her teeth, head twitching side to side.

 _“Ye-h…sss…”_ she hisses; throat warbling with a reptilian chittering sound — like mocking laughter, _“blahh—d… fi-eel…”_

Nadya tamps down the new rage to try and understand her. “Blood, you’re saying blood?” She gets another warble in response. “You’re saying my blood filled you? Made you feel?”

_“Morrrrh’…”_

“You want more.”

The Duchess nods again.

“You followed me here — followed my _blood_ here, because it made you feel.” Realization prickles at the back of her neck like a sixth sense; makes Nadya give a soft _“oh”_ of understanding.

“That’s why you’re the only one who made it out of the Manor. You could think; plan. The rest of them — the other crypt-Ferals — they were animals driven by hunger, but clouded by it too. Not you though. You used it to outsmart them. You weren’t just following scents and sounds. You were…

“You were remembering the paths in the tunnels. You got here before us because you planned it that way. Because you could.”

The Duchess listens but doesn’t speak again. Her head wavers and twitches in a way Nadya’s seen cobras do on TV, the grating hum at the back of her throat lowered into a predatory purr. Even without eyes to look into Nadya knows, unwaveringly, that the creature isn’t just hearing her. It’s understanding her; it’s _agreeing_ with her. Why else would she still be alive?

Before she can say anything more there’s a _thud_ and the clatter of wooden pieces back at the altar. The Duchess rounds toward the noise with renewed ferocity and Nadya takes the moment to try and catch any glimpse of life Lily might have left. Her chest isn’t moving — but it doesn’t need to. The blood still flows — but slower, and the darkness makes it hard to tell what kind of blood it _is._

She just _can’t tell,_ and the helplessness of it drags out of her shaky and ragged.

Then… a small movement catches her eye. _Wishful thinking,_ and maybe it is. But she _swears on her life_ that Lily’s finger moves even the tiniest bit.

And that’s more than enough.

“Hey— _hey!”_ Nadya claps her hands loud and desperate for the Feral’s attention. It’s barely enough to mask the faint groans of consciousness beckoning to them from the broken altar and pews. But it works.

The Duchess zeroes back in on her and this time closer than before. Enough that Nadya can feel her racing heart beating between their bodies.

But the Feral isn’t the only one who can bare her teeth. Nadya growls at her loud and unrepentant. “You miss it don’t you? You miss remembering things — feeling something other than that hollow _nothing_ inside of you.”

_“Yeh—sss…”_

“You want to keep remembering. You… want your memories back.”

Her stomach flips as the Duchess grins. _“Morrrh… blaa—hd…”_ She hisses, leaning forward and keeping her jaw wide and ready as she does.

With all of her might and then some, Nadya steels herself. Bites back down on her cut cheek to reopen the wound and keep the Feral fixated on her while the noises up ahead get louder and grow in number.

“You want them back so badly?” Nadya shoves herself forward with both hands up — prepares herself for the familiar pain that never comes — and forces the pair of them away. The move catches the Duchess unawares and makes the creature stumble back. Her feet suddenly too-large for the creature her body is against the woman her mind isn’t.

_“THEN TAKE THEM!”_

One hand curls a white-knuckled grip through the gaps of her protruding mask — fingers practically weaving into the spaces to keep them together. The jagged metal bites deep into her palms and the webs of her fingers; cuts that sting with a near-blinding pain that recedes just as quickly. The other presses her open palm smeared with blood and sweat along the smooth, uneven slopes of the Duchess’ upper face.

Part of Nadya has absolutely no idea what in the living hell she’s doing. Surprisingly (both to herself and the universe), that part is the smaller of the two. The rest is pure instinct and feeling. Grief and anger and pain and worry and naivete and her own _emptiness_ ripped out from deep at the bottom of the well of her soul and shoved out in any direction that will take it.

All of it through her; the spaces where they connect like a conduit — a catalyst of its own. Through her and down to where she pins them down in the middle of the aisle to the only place it can go.

If the Duchess wants to _feel,_ she can take Nadya’s anguish.

If the Duchess wants to _remember,_ she can see every memory Nadya’s seen.

It’s only fair.

Beneath her the Duchess writhes in protest; tries to buck her off like the world’s worst mechanical bull, but Nadya has too much conviction to let the physical world stop her. The creature’s movements eventually peter out; leaving them both still as stone. But the unholy shrieking both in her ears and through their connected minds never once wavers.

In truth, she doesn’t know how long they stay there, trapped in one another’s heads. There are several _eternities_ happening in sync with one another and all around them so many lifetimes too short and not short enough and lived and left wanting. Everything is dark; everything is too bright. Nadya is the Duchess as much as she is herself, as much as she is Gaius or Serafine or Adrian or Kamilah or even Valdas.

The only thing she is absolutely sure of is how much it _hurts._ And if she’s hurting then so is the cruel _thing_ trapped underneath her — and that’s the whole point.

Years and seconds and no time at all passes between the moment her knees collide with the aisle rug and the moment Nadya feels strong arms winding around her middle. One split second of warning before she’s swept into the air—weightless—and the connection between herself and her prisoner is severed.

Nadya pries her face away from the safety of Adrian’s chest just in time to see Jax swing his blade down on the Duchess’ prone neck. He takes good care of that thing. Keeps it sharp for moments exactly like these; moments where it cuts clean through bone only for crimson blood to be covered with ash.

The threat is gone, in some ways. In others… Nadya can still feel her, clawing away in the empty shadows in her head.

But in the way that matters they have enough time for Adrian to pry her away from his protective grasp slow enough to try and see the further toll taken by her stomach wound.

“That’s… impossible.”

Adrian stares and stares, but doesn’t say enough for Jax’s clarity so the warrior storms over to see the damage done himself. But as he, too, takes in the tattered remains of her sweater and the smooth, healthy _nothing_ that should be an infected mess of guts-sans-glory, he’s left just as speechless.

There’s a soft fumbling behind her and Nadya turns, electric with tension, only to relax when she sees Serafine hobbling through a broken femur healing too slowly for her liking.

The worry etched deep in the vampiress’ frown travels the length of her all the way to Nadya’s middle. She blinks, lips barely parted, before leaning against the nearest pew.

“That cannot be.”

Adrian’s exploratory touch is innocent; almost reticent. Cool fingertips that tickle over the pinkish tint of her new skin. “And yet…”

And yet _she doesn’t care,_ not when everything settles back into the boundaries of who Nadya is and isn’t. Because the person Nadya _is_ only cares about one thing.

Lily’s fingers twitch out of the corner of her eye.

_“OhgodLily—!”_

She doesn’t mean to shove Adrian away in her haste to get through but if that’s what it takes then so be it.

Nadya fumbles and falls her way to Lily’s side. She lands on her ankle in an odd way but the sight of the open wound still raw and bleeding means her pain doesn’t even register. Not when there are important things to deal with. Not when there are important people to save.

Lily’s eyes stay closed, but as Nadya scrambles to pull her down where she can rest her head in Nadya’s lap she feels the gentle hum where a pulse should be. She strains her ears but Lily’s voice is too faint for her to catch, even this close.

And just like that all the anger, some of it hers and some of it someone else’s, is gone. Replaced by trembling hands one that grabs Lily’s upper arm and hauls her closer with all her might; the other that hovers over the angry marks already beginning to fester wanting to touch—to _help_ —but she… she…

“I don’t — what do I do?”

The other vampires come around them and, for the first time, take in exactly how incredible and amazing Lily Spencer is. How selfless and silly and _wonderful_ and if they decide now is the time to tell Nadya she is an absolute fool for not appreciating this perfect, _textbook-definition best friend_ then honestly that’s fair and valid. They should. They should hate her for being selfish enough to let this happen.

With the last of her sanity Nadya remembers the fear Adrian had let slip through his shield at the Awakening Ball. How he had dragged her away from a wound just like this, from an incredible young life just like this, and hid her away to keep her safe. If he tries to do the same thing now…

“I’ll never forgive you.” She warns, and there’s no questioning just who it is she’s warning. “I won’t.”

Adrian takes one of his signature calming breaths; knuckles pressed against his mouth until Nadya realizes he’s shaking, too. So is Jax — so is Serafine. So is Lily; soft and small in her arms. _The entire world must be caving in on itself,_ she thinks, _that’s why everyone’s shaking._

“What do I do?” Nadya asks again, but Adrian won’t look her in the eyes. Fine— “Jax, how do I fix this?”

Okay, both of them are officially dead to her. But—but that’s okay, because— “You’ve seen this kinda stuff before, right Serafine? You—you know so much. You’ve lived so long. So just—just tell me what to do and I’ll do it. Blood—psychic shit—whatever it is I’ll do it.”

Whatever the woman was going to say, it dies on her lips without so much as a peep. Crumpled words in the crumpled look she’s giving Nadya; still pale and favoring her leg but that’ll heal soon enough. They’ve all healed enough.

It’s Lily’s turn now.

Nobody moves. Nobody speaks. The cathedral is so vast and spacious but Nadya’s running out of breathable air.

“Why—” —looking them up and down— “—why won’t you tell me what to do? What, do you—” —one by one by one— “—do you think I won’t do whatever it takes? Jax you said— _you said!”_

He _is_ Jax. The only man stubborn enough to outsmart the fucking _Council of New York_ for decades without breaking a sweat. So why does he try and convince Nadya that he’s… _not_ Jax… by sounding so defeated?

“Nadya.”

“No.”

“You —”

 _“No,”_ she says, but interrupts every chance they try to take to speak to her, “no now—now _stop it. Stop it and tell me what to do!”_

Serafine limps one step forward. _“Ma chérie…”_

“No.”

Adrian swallows all the knives in his throat. “N-Nadya, she —”

“NO!”

Like the shriek of a banshee. Her voice growing faint and desperate and ultimately forgotten on the old stone columns. _“NO! I don’t wanna hear it! Now will you—all three of you—just SHUT UP and tell me what to do?!_ This is _Lily_ we’re talking about!”

Nadya’s hand grasps tight enough to dig little nail-marks in Lily’s skin. The moment she feels even a drop of blood, though, the sight repels her — makes her recoil with her back pressed up against the pew at war with herself to keep Lily close and to get her far far away where Nadya can never hurt her again.

“I—I’m sorry, I’m sorry Lil’ I’m so… I’m…” She doesn’t know what she is anymore. Forget knowing who is left and just how much of her is _Nadya._ Without _Lily_ there, in her orbit, she’s never going to be _Nadya_ again.

So whoever this girl is, she leans down and presses her lips to Lily’s forehead. Temples touching, taking her in. They can give up — fine. She doesn’t need them. She can’t — she _won’t._ “I’ll do anything…” She whispers, and begs any listening god for a sign that _her Lily_ is still there, or that she could be again. “Whatever it takes…”

The cathedral door opens and closes out of her line of sight. One of the cowards abandoning them both, Nadya’s sure, until her bleary eyes count four pairs of shoes instead of three. The hallowed hall is already filled to the brim with her grief.

But the sharp sting of death prickles like frostbite at her skin and sends everything over the edge.

 _“‘Whatever it takes,’”_ asks a familiar voice in an unfamiliar accent, “are you quite sure about that?”

Maybe she’s lost all her marbles but she swears the limp hand in hers squeezes. Nadya squeezes back with all her might.

“Yes.”

“You’d give your life?”

There’s a shuffling above her head. The sound of muffled anger and words bitten back on lashing tongues. But she doesn’t look to see the source. If she looks elsewhere, Nadya’s terrified she’ll miss the next flickering, waning sign. She can’t risk it.

“… Yes.”

“Fitting, then, that only yours will do.”

 _Well you_ did _ask for_ any god, _didn’t you?_ That awful little voice asks, and she did. So who is she to be picky? Nadya asked… and the Made-God answered.

Gently he shifts his weight, only to bring the messy, bloodstained tip of a familiar sword to _tap_ the rug underfoot. Without ceremony Cynbel crouches down to her level. He reaches out, hand stained black with soot and something more sinister, and brushes Nadya’s hair out of her eyes.

“Shall we?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So... the short answer is _yes._ So long as your question is _did that really happen._
> 
> I had been debating changing some of the lore at a more drastic level for most of this book, and I guess you could say I've been testing the waters up until now. But there's no going back after this -- in more ways than one. As we all know--BB3 spoiler\--the Bloodkeeper is descended from the First Vampire. Which is a huge deal... and all we get out of it is some psychic powers? Nah. You guys know me by now; I go big or go home. Further details and explanations will definitely come in time, and in book 5 and onward, but the big reveal was here, today.
> 
> As always I would love to know your thoughts, comments, and critique. If you like my changes, I'd love to know why! If you don't, please feel free to share. I love hearing your thoughts on this stuff, especially now that I've pretty much crumpled canon up and tossed it out the window. Thanks as always for reading, and Happy Halloween!


	29. The Choices

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When all hope seems lost, Nadya must enlist the help of a dangerous new ally if she wants any chance of saving Lily from a terrible fate. It's high time she made her own choices.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **content warnings:** language, violence, blood, blood-drinking, gore, descriptions of violent acts, serious injury, dark themes, dissociation, trauma, hallucinations, depictions of monstrous behavior, mentions of past masochistic behavior

“‘Whatever it takes,’” _asks a familiar voice in an unfamiliar accent, “are you quite sure about that?”_  


_Maybe she’s lost all her marbles but she swears the limp hand in hers squeezes. Nadya squeezes back with all her might._

_“Yes.”_

_“You’d give your life?”_

_There’s a shuffling above her head. The sound of muffled anger and words bitten back on lashing tongues. But she doesn’t look to see the source. If she looks elsewhere, Nadya’s terrified she’ll miss the next flickering, waning sign. She can’t risk it._

_“… Yes.”_

_“Fitting, then, that only yours will do.”_

Well you _did_ ask for _any god,_ didn’t you? _That awful little voice asks, and she did. So who is she to be picky? Nadya asked… and the Made-God answered._

_Gently he shifts his weight, only to bring the messy, bloodstained tip of a familiar sword to tap the rug underfoot. Without ceremony Cynbel crouches down to her level. He reaches out, hand stained black with soot and something more sinister, and brushes Nadya’s hair out of her eyes._

_“Shall we?”_

“No we shall fucking not.”

From the looks of it Jax was the one who held Adrian back; an act of good faith that’s now been all but stomped on and tossed in the garbage. He kicks the flat of the man’s sword away — easy to do with only one fingertip on the hilt keeping it standing — and brings his own blade up regardless of height to rest clean and still against Cynbel’s throat.

The blond vampire stares down through lowered lashes. His eyes barely flicker as he takes Jax in… swallows unnecessarily to gauge the sharpness of the katana that nicks his throat for his troubles… only to swing his focus around to Serafine.

“Friends of yours, _Mademoiselle Dupont?”_

Jax and Adrian exchange strange looks. Jax raises a single eyebrow; Adrian doesn’t have anything but a shrug to offer back.

But Serafine is standing proud on both legs now. The tension in her jaw betrays the pain it causes her — femur not quite mended the way it should be. But she would rather be torn limb from limb than show weakness in the presence of the man before her.

One thing betrays her, though. A cautious look thrown over his shoulder; fixated on Adrian. Desperate to keep the attention away from one of the few things she cherishes most and as a result doing the exact opposite.

Cynbel bats the sword away like one would a fly; a casual motion that sends Jax staggering backwards with both feet. Easier, this way, for him to round on Adrian with an inappropriate curiosity.

Nadya finds herself unable to keep her focus on Lily because of all this. She still tightens her arms around the minute trembling of her too-cold body.

“What pretty eyes you have,” Cynbel reaches forward as he croons, but Adrian doesn’t give him the chance before he’s stepping back, “too bad they don’t make up for your shit manners.”

His extended hand clenches in midair. Knuckles that crack and echo in the cavernous cathedral and show just what that touch could have been capable of. A visual threat that isn’t lost on anyone.

“They aren’t what you seek, Cynbel.”

“Too right you are.”

Adrian is the unwelcome recipient of a crimson-tinted wink, but he has enough willpower to wait until Serafine holds the Trinity vampire’s attention utterly before letting his unease show.

“I’ll admit… it took me far too long to realize this wasn’t another one of your little mind games. Anything to avoid the actual act of bloodying your hands, right?” He stares down his nose at her; only then does Nadya realize why _this one_ is a stark contrast to the man she called her friend.

He looks so different without his glasses.

“My knowledge of the psyche is limited… you know that. But I’m pretty sure you can’t conjure up the unimaginable in the midst of a memory. And I would hate to think such a striking beauty would harbor the kind of grotesque imagination required to think up those… _things._ So this… all of this…”

His voice, lilting like a whisper, is still too strong not to demand an audience. “We’re really back here, aren’t we?”

“Ever the observant one, _le tueur.”_

“You know I hate that fucking name.”

He backhands her before Nadya can even blink. _SMACK!_ Flesh on flesh and strong enough to leave a needle-thin mark on the cut of Serafine’s cheekbone. She reels in silence, but she’s the only one.

“You savage!” Adrian snarls, fangs bared, and rushes Cynbel from behind. Maybe if he had seen the older vampire’s face — like Nadya does, like Jax does — he would have second-guessed himself. But he doesn’t — and he pays for it.

“Adrian, don’t!”

Cynbel catches his fist mid-punch. Every inch of him positively _vibrating_ with delight. _“Adrian…_ Why do I know that name?” His grip only tightens as Adrian struggles to pull back, his grunts of effort using up the last of his strength. “Oh well, it’ll come to me,” he shrugs, “but you ought to listen to your woman, _Adrian._ Or at least think up something more insulting than calling me a _savage.”_

“What,” Adrian spits out, “something like _le tueur?”_

If he braces himself for his own beating it doesn’t show. In fact, Cynbel isn’t phased in the slightest.

“Words are hollow when they have no meaning behind them. The _Mademoiselle_ calls me a murderer because I murdered her precious City. Not my finest hour — and I do so hate to be reminded of my failures.” And he says it with a _smile._ “But you call me a murderer and all I feel is the itch to list off all the names for the hell of it. But as far as I am aware… one of your little troupe doesn’t have that kind of time.”

All eyes fall to Nadya and Lily and their weak huddle on the floor. Growing weaker by the moment. Blood that never stops flowing and those wishful maybes in clasped hands fewer and far between.

Something eases out of his frown when he and Nadya lock eyes. The sight reminds her of grass peeking out from old snow, oddly enough.

This time he speaks noticeably softer. “As I was saying… as far as I’m aware, all of this is real. Not a trick or illusion… which tells me the last thing I remember — the artillery shell and the trenches — was… probably some time ago. Wasn’t it?”

Nadya nods, lower lip quivering slightly. “Y-Yes. It was —”

He holds up a hand to stop her. Nadya bites her tongue in her haste and winces at the sting.

“Right now the details are… well I don’t want to call them _unimportant_ but I think they’ve waited this long, another hour or two shouldn’t end the world.”

Something about his choice of words leaves a foul taste in Serafine’s mouth. “No, that takes mere seconds for you.”

“Another word of lip from you and I’ll break your other leg and collapse the surface tunnel behind me.” Her eyes widen at the threat. “I very well could. You deserve nothing less… but I hate being indebted to others. This balances the scales.”

“Anyone else had about enough of this _Jekyll and Hyde_ act,” Jax quips; tongue just as sharp as his sheathed katana as he rounds back on Cynbel in a renewed rush of anger, “or is it just me?”

“Matsuo…” Serafine sounds so weary — they all do, “there are forces at play you do not yet understand. Ones that require… _intimate_ explanation.”

“Then start explaining.”

“Would I, if I did not worry for what little time Lily has left.”

And Nadya can see the conflict written in dark, bold lines across his face. But everyone has a limit to what they will endure. Personally, she’s pretty sure she reached her limit several months ago and everything that’s happened since is just her own waking nightmare.

Jax, though… he’s finally crested his.

He doesn’t back down. Even knowing what’s at stake. Part of her hates him for it. But then… another part is (silently) glad he’s doing the one thing none of them dare to try. He’s standing up to the man.

Judging by the twitch of his smirk, Cynbel comes to the same conclusion as she does.

He offers a blackened hand between them; gentlemanly and proper.

“Formal introductions, then, since you seem so intent on gambling with the lives of your lessers.” Jax’s upper lip curls in a flash of fang. But the other vampire doesn’t give him the breath to interrupt.

“Call me Cynbel.”

“Funny, I thought your name was Cadence.” Jax doesn’t take the offered hand. Why would he?

A strangeness passes over Cynbel’s furrowed brow. “Who?”

Nadya finds Adrian’s eyes in the dark. Fear bubbles up inside her chest — not that there’s much room left for anything else. 

_Oh god… what have I done?_

A sentiment that could be applied to a lot of things at the moment. But none of that matters — not even the fallout happening right before her eyes — because Lily’s barely-there tremors erupt without warning into a full-blown seizing episode.

“A—Adrian!” Nadya barely recognizes her own voice; pitched high and desperate, pleading. She’s no match for anything Lily might do to her now, on accident or on purpose, but that only makes her hold on tighter.

“Get out of my way.”

It’s a demand Cynbel has no choice but to comply with. Adrian shoulders the man aside and joins Nadya on his knees. He grasps firmly at the seam of Lily’s jaw to tilt her mouth back and hold it open just as a greyish foam spills out from her cracked lips. He gives Nadya a quick glance, almost looking like he wants to warn her away, but changes his mind at the last minute. They both know it wouldn’t have done a thing.

Even weakened as he is, he’s still stronger than Nadya. He turns Lily on her side and holds her through the crest of her episode with his free hand flat and firm on her sternum. “Careful, don’t let it touch you…” He whispers, but doesn’t have to tell her twice.

She tries to count how long it lasts, but the seconds tick by so slowly that she ends up losing track before she even hits ten. It stops as abruptly as it began; Lily falls back against Nadya’s chest suddenly and all at once. She doesn’t know whether to be relieved or even more afraid.

“We’re running out of time.”

Adrian tries to bite his tongue. But he’s never lied to her about something like this. She won’t let him. “Nadya… you know what a Feral bite can do.” _You’ve seen it yourself,_ he doesn’t say, but her mind does a well enough job calling her out on it without him pitching in.

 _Yes Adrian, I do,_ she doesn’t say back, _but I don’t care._

Nadya roughly wipes away her tears; blinks up at Cynbel with stinging eyes.

“Tell me how to fix this.”

He hesitates to answer. Nadya’s stomach drops out of her and rolls out to the floor. _No… no he can’t back out now. He_ owes _her._ “I wasn’t asking! Now make your two thousand year old ass useful and _tell me how to cure her!”_

If she weren’t so distressed, she’d swear the look he gives her is an impressed one.

“There isn’t a cure.”

_No. No no no nononono—_

“Or… none that I’ve ever come across. Something I’m sure the _Mademoiselle_ will agree with me on, however reluctantly.”

And he’s right. Though she looks like the very idea causes her pain, there’s nothing disingenuous in her voice. “He’s… He’s right, Nadya. A Feral’s bite and blood is… an incurable end.”

“But you said —”

He holds up his finger again. “I’ve never come across a Feral conscious of its own condition, either. The longer you believe something to be set in stone, the harder the forces of this world and others seem to fight to prove you wrong.”

Adrian shakes his head, obviously perplexed. “What do you mean, the Feral was _conscious?”_

Which — that’s still a whole barrel of crazy separate from the crazy already rolling downhill that Nadya has yet to process. And frankly it can wait. Thinking about how much even the _concept_ of the Duchess terrified her wasn’t going to save Lily now was it?!

But… she’s been wrong before.

“She spoke to me.”

“Who?”

Nadya answers him with a pointed stare; eyes slowly drifting to the ash clustered under their feet. It takes him a moment, and she gets why. If she hadn’t heard that broken-glass voice with her own ears…

Serafine mutters something rapid under her breath; a prayer for faith, or a ward of it. Whatever it is makes Cynbel hum and shrug his shoulder. “I assume it was the only one capable. Not that I stopped to chat with the ones trying to pick their teeth with my bones.”

“Another consequence of life here, trapped in the City?”

“These are hardly the first Ferals to be entombed, Serafine,” Adrian answers; distant like an afterthought. The look he roams over Lily, from tip to toe, is a little too analytical for Nadya’s current mental fragility. “But if the Feral that bit her was—was _cognizant,_ somehow… maybe she…”

But what do deductions matter if none of it is enough to save her, or if they don’t find the answer fast enough? And why the hell does Cynbel keep smirking at her like that? She wants to rush him, pin him to the ground, push her thumbs into his awful terrible sociopath head and—

The blond nods appraisingly. “Ah, there it is.”

“There _what_ is?” Serafine snaps.

But he just gestures to Nadya as answer. Nadya who knows that rage, moreover knows it isn’t hers. It was never hers.

Recognition has never looked so crestfallen. “I was right, wasn’t I? When I told the Duchess it was my blood that gave her back her memories. I… I was kinda just keeping her talking until I could figure out what to do, but…”

_But I have always worked best under pressure._

Nadya strokes her fingertip feather-light over the sheen of Lily’s forehead. “And that’s why I’m the only one who can save her.”

“She hasn’t Turned Feral yet. The blood courses through her veins and the longer we take hashing this shit out the deeper it takes root. But if one drop of your blood is enough to bring back the mind through centuries’ worth of that corruption… well.”

He shrugs again. He shrugs a lot, she’s noticing. Arms crossed over his chest, standing a pace and a half away from the rest of them. Separating himself — putting up walls. _Awfully different than the lovers who didn’t know the meaning of Personal Space,_ she thinks, and lets that be that.

Nadya wiggles her arm out from underneath Lily’s weight, wrist turned up in offering to Adrian. “Then get it done, now.”

 _Who does he think he is, hesitating like that?_ “I—I want to believe it, Nadya. I do.”

“Then less talking, more saving.”

“No… he’s right to want to be certain.” Jax runs his fingers through his hair, ashy fingers leaving grey streaks in their wake. “Since it’s awfully convenient this guy shows up like vampire Sherlock Holmes and all.”

Cynbel snorts. “Now _there’s_ an insult…”

“And,” Adrian tries to reach out to her, but she knows it isn’t for what she wants and jerks her arm away, “and you need to remember there have been other Bloodkeepers; only a few… but we know they exist. But nobody’s ever heard of a Feral… Turning _back.”_

He hesitates — battles over whether or not he should say the rest… and at least has the decency to look guilty over choosing to be a grade-A dick.

“Not even Kamilah.”

Something twitches on Cynbel’s face; there and then gone. But he spends the moments after watching Adrian with a renewed, unnatural focus.

Nadya, though, she can’t look at anything else fast enough.

“Don’t you dare.”

He sighs. “I’m just trying to make sense of this.”

“So you bring _her_ into the conversation? Kamilah doesn’t know everything Adrian! She didn’t even know I _was_ a Bloodkeeper — not when I was going through all that pain and confusion and hurt. No one is old enough to know everything, not— _hic_ —not even Gaius!”

“That’s exactly my point, though.”

“Yeah, and it’s mine too. I just can’t believe I’m surrounded by family and the only person I’m agreeing with is the guy who just joined the freakin’ quest party!” _Oh god,_ there she goes. She shouldn’t have said anything at all. Once the tears start again they don’t stop — and they probably aren’t going to any time soon. Because that’s something Lily would say, if she could say anything, or if she was conscious enough to high-five Nadya for the reference, or if she was _anything_ other than on the verge of second-death and a whole new- _new_ life of being a mindless monster!

And looking down, Nadya’s tears dripping shiny little droplets on Lily’s cheeks… nothing in the world could ever change her mind.

“She risked her life for me, Adrian. How could I _not_ do the same?”

She meets him stride for stride; eyes blazing and jaw set and he’s lucky for his own sake that he doesn’t fight her for too long. Adrian’s shoulders slump and he nods, leaning back to steady his own resolve. 

Cynbel clears his throat. “If we’re done with the heartfelt arguments?” But the glares he earns do about as much as to be expected.

“Just — one thing.”

“No, Serafine.”

 _“Nadya,”_ she insists, and once again she stands before them the same woman from the ballroom — enraged with a fear none of them can understand, “please. You don’t know this man like I do. You don’t know the things he would do… the lives he would cast aside…”

Serafine almost looks to Cynbel in challenge. Like she wants him to deny it; to try and plead some kind of case against her slander. He doesn’t.

Instead he just shrugs. “By all means.”

Her teeth grind together audibly. “What has you so convinced _her_ blood will do the trick? Beyond the… _slim_ evidence you already have.”

“You and I both know the value of blood purity, Dupont.”

“That is not an answer.”

“Of course it is,” he gestures to Nadya like she’s an object; like she’s not even there, “the Bloodkeeper has been a generation behind us for thousands of years. If she was meant for anything I would say it was this.”

“And how do you know this?”

“Because I met one of the first.”

Nadya sucks in a breath. Her hand tightens over Lily’s unbidden. Cynbel glances her way with that same unusual, uncharacteristic softness and for a second she almost thinks she understands why. It only lasts a moment — there and then gone. But it… _was_ there, wasn’t it?

“Her name was Nona,” he continues, “and though I didn’t know then what I do now… I’m certain she was a Bloodkeeper. No one else could know what she did. Things she saw; visions that came to pass… visions that had already happened centuries before her time. By the time I made the connection to the Godmaker’s hunt it was irrelevant. Not so much now.”

Adrian shifts uncomfortably. “When was this?” Because surely he and Nadya are thinking the same thing; they’re remembering Kamilah’s story back in New York. The journal. _The madness._

“Before the fall of Caesar.”

“Jesus…” Jax practically chokes.

“Before him, too.”

 _Two thousand years ago,_ if Nadya’s getting her history right. Before Kamilah, maybe? Or walking along right beside her in history. How much more convincing would Serafine need — moreover… did it matter? _It’s not her choice._

If there’s any more he wants to say, the Trinity vampire doesn’t say it. Instead he just raises an eyebrow at Serafine and waits; baiting her — goading her to deny him what he knows to be true.

 _He’s telling the truth, too._ Nadya can feel it in her bones.

“Now, since time is in short supply…”

Cynbel swoops in and hauls Lily up like she weighs absolutely nothing. Maybe to him she doesn’t. They may be relying on him but that doesn’t mean Nadya doesn’t watch him like a hawk as he carries her up the aisle to the cracked stone altar, now off-center, and lays her down like some kind of horrible ritual sacrifice.

Something about the way he smiles — secret and to himself, sharing a private thought in the gleam of his eye — tells her he’s thinking along similar lines.

Lily groans, voice so weak, and doesn’t even have the strength to keep her head flat and facing up. Nadya wants to throw herself down beside her on the stone. _How could I_ not _do the same,_ she had asked Adrian.

_How could I do anything else?_

With careful, probing touches Cynbel examines the Duchess’ wound. Though blood no longer oozes from the puncture marks the black gelatinous stuff starting to coagulate at the edges of her skin definitely aren’t a good sign. He pulls the collar of her shirt back and Nadya recoils at the awful smell — which says nothing for the sight of black veins spiderwebbing down her shoulder and halfway across her chest.

“Lovely…” He grimaces. “We’ll need to work quickly. You—Mop-Top —” —it takes everyone a second to realize he means _Jax—_ “— give me your jacket.”

Jax looks like he’s about to protest, but one glance at Lily’s condition and he’s all but ripping the ash-coated leather from his person and shoving it in the man’s offered hand. Cynbel balls it up and shoves it under Lily’s head like a makeshift pillow.

“The most important thing to keep in mind is under _no circumstances_ is she allowed to feed from you physically.” He doesn’t look at Nadya as he says it; instead prying Lily’s lips apart with probing fingers. She has expected to see fangs, but to see all of her teeth sharper where they rest in greying gums is enough to make Nadya nearly sick. “At least until _this_ is back to how it should look. Then it should be enough indication that the Feral venom won’t be a contagious thing.”

Adrian wraps an arm tightly around Nadya’s shoulders. “What are you suggesting?”

Serafine answers for him. “Bloodletting.”

Maybe some part of her should be scared. Maybe it’s better that _none_ of her actually is. Because this is Lily they’re talking about.

The large sword — which Nadya now recognizes as the same one that had been lodged in the ballroom wall — clatters as Cynbel all but tosses it beside Lily on the altar. He shucks off his own tattered and blackened layers and rolls up his sleeve.

“Think of it more like a transfusion. That’s the only way we’re going to get enough blood in her to work.”

“You’re sure?” Jax can’t help the way he flickers nervous looks between Lily’s prone form and Nadya where she’s shaking (completely involuntarily, she’s doing this no matter what any of them say) in her boots.

“Suffice to say I think Nadya would agree — better to go big or go home,” says Cynbel — but its what he _doesn’t say_ that rings true.

If they want to make sure this works they need to give it everything they’ve got.

Adrian’s grip on her shoulder holds her back when she tries to approach the altar. She pries each finger off and squeezes his hand tightly. “I can do this.”

Doesn’t mean he’s going to stop looking at her like that, though.

“I know you can.”

She hops up on the stone and lays beside Lily. She laces their fingers together; tries to ignore how little difference she feels there. They’re both cold; both shaking.

A tender hand on her upper arm drags Nadya’s eyes away from Lily’s face. Serafine looks haggard with worry; trying and failing not to sneak subtle glances up as Cynbel examines what other changes might have already started to take root.

 _“You’ve done a dangerous thing, you know.”_ The woman whispers close enough for her voice to tickle Nadya’s ear. _“And though everything in my body screams to be angry with you…”_

“Be angry; hate me if you need to.” Because some part of her can feel it. That’s why Serafine put up her walls, that’s why she had lashed out the way she had. There’s no telling a woman like her not to feel anything other than what she wishes.

“But don’t stand here and tell me to change my mind. There’s no point.”

It’s enough for the vampiress to give Nadya her full attention — possibly for the first time since Cynbel walked into the cathedral. She recognizes the gleam in Serafine’s weary eyes. It’s the first time she’s looked anything like the woman Nadya had come to rely on so heavily ever since they came here.

Something about Serafine softens at the edges. Thank god.

“You’ve come a long way.”

“It was a lot of walking.”

Serafine’s lips twist up wryly. “You know that is not what I mean, _petit._ You are no longer the girl who ran from the room, crying at her fear and helplessness. One could argue you are still just as reckless…” she presses a finger to Nadya’s lips before she can protest, “but sometimes such is the only way to do what needs to be done.”

“Like you were when you tried to kill —”

“Yes.” She cuts Nadya off on purpose — there go those furtive glances back up and behind her head. She presses a chaste kiss to the seam of Nadya’s hairline.

_“Bonne chance, petit.”_

Jax has rounded the stone slab up near Lily’s head, both hands pressing firmly down on her shoulders in preparation for a fight. _Is there going to be a fight,_ she wonders, but knowing wouldn’t change her decision either way.

Nadya lets go of Lily’s hand only because she has to. Only because Adrian draws her arm up and over to hover just shy of her best friend’s too-pale lips.

Serafine draws around them like a shadow, lingering behind as an observer to their strange ritual.

“You won’t need to rely on the dregs underneath your fingernails for this one.”

Cynbel offers his arm, fist clenched and veins taut under his skin, just beside Nadya’s head. She gives him a dubious look, but the man shrugs it off. “None of your friends are strong enough to keep you sustained.”

“And you are?”

“We shall see.”

They’ll have to, won’t they. “If it’s any consolation,” he shrugs, “know you’ll be Turned by good stock if you _don’t_ survive. I get the impression you’ve already met my beloveds… the blood of the Made-God is rarely shared.”

“You’re not making as much of a case as you think you are.”

Before Cynbel can answer, he’s cut off by another one of Lily’s seizures. Her legs twitch and spasm, teeth bared and dark circles under her eyes. Nadya fails to convince herself it’s her imagination that makes it look like Lily’s skin is starting to sink into the contours of her skull.

“No more talking.” Her head tilted up to look at Adrian upside-down. “Do it.”

He presses an open-mouthed kiss to her palm. His own little version of _good luck._ Then, without pretense, he whips the sword around in a blur of movement and draws the blade across her skin.

The pain is sharp— _pun intended_ —but clarifying, too. Like it isn’t just blood that drips in a thin stream to seep between the porous stone but the fog in her mind, too. Everything is more defined; everything makes a little bit more sense. It’s not the first time Nadya’s felt just how easily things like pain can change her view on the world… it’s just the first time it’s for a good cause.

With a steadiness that surprises them all Adrian drags her wrist and the ribbon of blood with it over Lily’s head. Droplets _drip-drip-dripping_ in little red jewels across her skin before it comes to rest just over the seam of her lips.

Nadya turns her head just in time. Joining the vampires as they watch, transfixed, while her blood slips inside.

It’s agony. Waiting, watching, desperate for any immediate sign. But that would be too easy; seeing something happen right away like that. The universe would rather her tiny little heart give out from the stress of it all first.

Nothing happens.

Nothing _keeps_ happening.

“What’s — why isn’t it…” _Why isn’t it working?_

Jax peers over her, fingers moving along Lily’s face for signs of… of anything. Good or bad, maybe. His frown sure doesn’t give her a lot of hope.

“What’s wrong?”

She looks up to Adrian and hates him for his silence. _“Adrian.”_

“It’s not enough blood.” Cynbel says, and like a trigger Adrian’s hand tightens around the sword.

“It will have to be.”

 _That’s not your decision._ “Then make a deeper cut,” she practically growls out.

“No, Nadya.”

“Do it!”

“No.”

What is he thinking? No, he must not be thinking. Or he’s only thinking about… about Nadya and not…

“You already begged me to save her life once.” Adrian’s words send the chill of death through her bones, but not as much as the conviction hard like steel in his eyes. “And I did — I—I would again. But not at the cost of yours.”

“That’s why we have him!”

_It’s still not doing anything._

Nadya struggles, yanks herself away from Cynbel who relinquishes his hold far too easily. Tries to pull herself away from Adrian but he — he isn’t so easily swayed. _I can’t believe him,_ she wants to scream; to claw at him until he lets her free.

“Jax—please—” —but he doesn’t move— “—Serafine, come on she—” —she can’t meet Nadya’s eyes either— _“—SOMEONE DO SOMETHING!”_

Nobody does a damn thing.

They’re not willing to risk her. How _dare they make that choice for her._

Thrashing, legs kicking and a choked scream bubbling up wet with her screams and sobs in the back of her throat. “Don’t do this! I’m not worth it! I’m not worth it!” _She is, she knows she is, knows the things she knows are the things that are important to know but… but…_

But Nadya didn’t choose to know them. Nadya didn’t choose to be the Bloodkeeper. Just like Lily didn’t choose to be a vampire. Just like she wouldn’t dare choose to be like _this_ even if it _did_ save Nadya’s life in the end. She knows so very little about so much and so much about things that she won’t ever understand but if she knows one thing it’s—it’s that.

Nadya’s head whips around hard enough to hurt; to scrape the shell of her ear on the old rock. Hair obscuring half her vision and burning determination in her eyes, she besets her eyes on Cynbel and speaks through a cut on her tongue and with blood in her teeth.

_“You owe me.”_

He had said so himself, but even a two thousand year old man can still be surprised. _“You said you owe me a debt.”_

“I did.”

_“Then pay it.”_

Adrian’s grip only tightens on Nadya’s wrist. Like he’s about to pull her away. And pull Lily’s chances away with it.

“Will this make us even?” Cynbel asks, far calmer than the rest of them.

_“This is the only thing that will.”_

If the universe is going to keep demanding payment in blood, then Nadya’s going to start paying with interest.

“Nadya… don’t do this.” Adrian’s voice cracks. She doesn’t even want to look at his face.

Serafine tenses at the far end of the altar. “Cynbel, you don’t know what you’re doing. We need her.”

“Seems like she’s intent on giving less than a fuck about that.”

“The _world_ needs her. You don’t know what’s happening up there. The chaos that’s about to unfold.”

“It doesn’t seem to be up to me.”

_“Cynbel! Do it!”_

Adrian lets out a frustrated noise. “That’s it. We’re done here. Jax —”

“If she dies, _Monsieur D’or, Les Trois Amants_ stay in Gaius’ service forever.”

It’s the only thing that could still the older vampire’s hand — and it works. In the space between her heartbeats Nadya feels herself stricken with cold, unyielding fear that she’s going to lose Lily forever.

_And I’ll never forgive them for it._

Adrian nods to Jax, who hooks his hands under Lily’s armpits and moves to separate them across the altar. “I’m sor—”

_“So don’t let me die.”_

It’s the only thing she can think to say. One final, pathetic plea branded on her tongue in blood, in her eyes in tears, and she is so _so tired_ of people choosing for her.

Gaius and Jameson choosing to force her powers. Valdas and Isseya choosing for her to give them the memory of the Amulet.

Kamilah choosing to keep her in the dark about the things she didn’t think Nadya could handle. Things she chose to feel Nadya couldn’t handle.

And now this — Adrian, Jax, Serafine, even a man she barely knows and at the same time understands in ways she would never want to. All of them choosing to let her live and let Lily…

_Rarely are we given the opportunity to choose our own destiny._

_But it’s possible, right?_

Cynbel’s entire hand is almost wide enough to eclipse Adrian’s whole face. His eyes flicker red, one last effort of weak resistance, but the Trinity vampire had been right about one thing at least. There’s power in the purity of blood. He’s too weak to fight back. Cynbel shoves him backwards, forces him to stumble over himself and fall back. _I’m sorry._

Nadya’s bleeding arm falls limp to the altar. The collision makes her wince; she grits her teeth and bares it.

“No!” Serafine springs into action — out of all of them she had been the only one ready for this; ready for betrayal. She vaults over the slab and over Nadya’s head, one hand outstretched for the sword resting just within reach.

Cynbel uses her momentum and her injured leg against her. Hurling the vampiress over above him and further than she intended. She collides into Adrian face-first, his body barely enough to cushion her fall. His arms come around her instinctively as the woman cries out in pain, buckled by her own weight.

Swallowing down on spit and her own blood, Nadya flips herself over just in time to catch hold on Lily’s wrist before Jax can completely pull her out of reach. She meets his eyes, every bit a tempest, and feels the weight of Cynbel shift behind her as they both dare him to move.

“Don’t do this. Don’t choose for her.”

He looks between the unlikely pair. His grip shifts as Lily gives an unconscious shift of her head. Nadya’s blood trickles weak from her parted lips. But the ink in her veins hasn’t spread any further than when they began; she’s not changed for the better but she hasn’t gotten worse. That has to mean something.

They wait in a merciless silence for Jax to make his move.

Finally, his grip eases on her. Lily slumps down further; closer to Nadya.

“You think she can fight this, too?”

Nadya barely recognizes her own desperate voice. “I _know_ she can.”

Chin raised, Jax chooses — he visibly fights through every instinct in his body that says otherwise and steps back. Lily falls from his grasp. Cynbel catches her in the crook of his arm before she goes tumbling from the altar’s edge.

She doesn’t waste time. They’ve done enough of that.

With Cynbel’s earlier warning still loud in the front of her thoughts, Nadya surges forward and presses her throbbing wrist hard up against Lily’s mouth.

“You’re gonna be okay Lil’ — you’re gonna be okay…”

Nothing happens.

_Don’t you dare._

Nothing _keeps_ happening.

Nadya’s eyes roam over every inch of her ashen face. She presses harder, harder until she feels her flesh sting where she pierces it on a fang.

_“COME ON!”_

Lily’s eyes fly open.

Faster than Nadya can see. Heaving forward. A bone-breaking grip on her arm. Sharp nails — too sharp — sinking their hooks into her. But that’s nothing compared to the blinding pain that comes when sharp teeth rip into her skin.

She suffers into stillness — unable to do anything but watch, wide eyes and a scream caught at the back of her throat, while Lily wrenches the wound open further, deeper; craving more. More of the blood running thick and hot down her chin spilling onto the stone sinking into their clothes. There’s _so much…_ and it’s still very little wasted compared to the large, gulping mouthfuls Nadya can feel being pulled from her veins.

The dizziness hits her like a brick. Joy replaced by fear replaced by _oh shit what have I done, what am I doing, what is_ she _doing_ that threatens to send Nadya careening to the side.

A familiar arm slips around her shoulders and keeps her upright. Cynbel’s palm, stained from dried blood and dirt, tilts up to her in offering.

_“Don’t think — drink.”_

Nadya bites down until she feels something give.

Lily feeds on wet, gulping mouthfuls of her blood, while the cathedral shadows swoop in and devour the rest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Seems like they'd never get out of that crypt, huh...? Well... they are. And now we enter the final... _final_ stretch... As always, comments and critique would be fabulous!


	30. The Last Act part 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Now that they're back on the surface, everyone struggles with the things they learned down below. Things they learned about Gaius and the First, things they learned about each other, and the ones they learned about themselves. But the worst is yet to come.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **content warnings:** language, violence, hallucinations, dissociation, blood, blood drinking

“That’s enough. Give it here.”  


“No,” she shakes her head adamantly; the sudden dizziness tries to argue right back at her, “no I just needed to sit. I can do a little more.”

“I’m certain you can —”

“— then keep —”

“— but you _need_ to rest.”

Her voice cracks in a whimper. “I will, I promise I will — but —”

 _“Enough,”_ Cadence snaps, stern only because he has to be; because this isn’t the first time Nadya’s tried to give more blood than her body can function properly without, “I won’t hear any more of it. You’re still weak, and this is a good amount… should last us the next day or so while you rest up.”

At least they’re both well aware of who exactly he’s talking to; and just how _not-over-with_ this conversation actually is. They’ve had ample time to talk (read: argue) while he draws her blood with a steady, never-wavering focus. He knows she’ll argue this until she passes out from the blood loss. Just like she knows he’s only disagreeing with her because he feels like he has to. To get back on everyone else’s good sides.

 _Though… what did those look like, again?_ She’s starting to forget. Probably because she hasn’t seen them in a long _long_ time.

Even if he’s still radiating frustrated vibes Cadence stays professional; every bit the real medical doctor as he eases the needle from the inside of her elbow and quickly staunches the last few drops with cotton. All of it methodical, perfectly normal blood-donating stuff. Until, that is, her vampire medic catches his thumb between sharpened teeth and nips the smallest of cuts. Just a drop is all it takes; one little red line swiped over the puncture mark and _presto vanish-o._

A rueful smile tugs against her unwilling lips. She’s the farthest thing from a making-jokes mood but any time it happens they’re always in Lily’s voice. It’s such a comfort right now — they have no idea.

Cadence transfers her blood from the bowl to an empty blood bag; that gets traded out for the one from yesterday in one hand and the funnel on the drying rack by the sink in the other.

“Can I come with this time?”

Nadya’s caught him off-guard; faltering steps and his shoulders squaring off like he has an answer on the tip of his tongue, only to remember that he’s a good man.

“Just… don’t tell the others.”

Crossing her finger over her heart, she nods. “Promise.”

He makes her hang back five steps from the door while he opens it and makes sure the coast is clear. A stupid precaution in her eyes; if there really was a Feral vampire on the other side she doubts a door would be enough to hold the thing back. Her friends only have her best interests at heart, though, and she knows it. It’s just… fear makes people do weird things.

It can make them act out; be cruel… or unleash a vengeful bloodthirsty warlord on the woman who took away a century of his life.

Finally Cadence steps inside. He holds the door open and she ducks under his arm to squeeze through.

“Hey Lil’.”

She has the same first thought every time: _she looks like she could be sleeping._ Only Lily doesn’t sleep on her back, she sleeps like a dragon in a hoard of pillow-treasure. _So this must be some other girl,_ is always the next idea. But that’s wrong too.

This is Lily; here and real and colder than the chilly bedroom when Nadya sits on the bedside and takes one hand in hers. And no matter how much this _sucks_ it’s better than the alternative. Nadya knows they’re doing all they can here; like driving in an endless fog.

Cadence makes quick work of propping Lily’s mouth open with the funnel and getting this over with as fast as possible. Nadya would do the same — but because that’s just plain disgusting. Her friends keep these trips short and quick because they’re all still so weak. They can only resist open, fresh-ish blood for so long.

Together they watch, and wait; and Nadya never looks away from Lily’s closed eyelids. Part of her hopes and wishes they might twitch — or better, fly open. The rest isn’t sure _what_ exactly would open those eyes. That’s the part that keeps her quiet.

Minutes that feel like hours that feel like years later, when there’s nothing left in the bag but veins made by the plastic, the vampire takes out the funnel and gives Nadya a generous bit of space for her patience.

Nadya moves closer; leaning and tugging out a wadded fistful of tissues because there’s something so wrong about seeing her blood dribbling from Lily’s lips. “I know you didn’t wanna get blood on this jacket,” she teases, “but frankly the fact that you still have standards after wearing it underground is a ‘you’ problem.”

Her lower lip wobbles. Keeps her from saying anything more — and Nadya has so much more to say. She only wishes she could punch the words out of her stupid stuck throat.

“You just keep getting better.” There are still times where Nadya wakes up fresh from living-nightmares of Lily’s body convulsing, drenched in sweat, black disease creeping up through her body and spreading like a mold. And while they have no real guess as to whether or not Nadya’s blood is _reversing_ the corruption, they don’t know that it’s _not._ They _do_ know that it hasn’t spread any further.

That’s more than enough reason to keep trying.

A few more tissues dab away little wet spots Nadya almost thinks are sweat on her brow. But then one falls on her hand. And another. And another. So she wipes her eyes instead.

“Just keep getting better — and when we get home I promise I won’t complain about your gamefest junk food trash for a whole month. Or…” because she can _feel_ the judgment—really she can, “like not to your face anyway.”

She doesn’t expect a response, nor does she get one. Life isn’t that easy. “Love you,” Nadya says instead, someone has to have the last word, and with one last kiss to her forehead and and Cadence leave Lily alone in the cold and the dark.

Cadence, perceptively, gives Nadya her space back in the kitchen. He busies himself with the fridge door and cabinet and then there’s a glass of apple juice in front of her that Nadya would definitely prefer to be wine. She takes it with a nonverbal shrug of thanks.

_“Ahem.”_

“Hm?”

“Drink.”

_Don’t think — drink._

Nadya flinches at the memory. Involuntary, no doubt about it; but Cadence sees it clear as day. Doesn’t see much point in hiding the hurt that flashes dark over his eyes.

She feels bad enough about it to down the entire cup in one fell swoop.

“Sorry… about that.”

“For what?” He shrugs her off with a smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes. Nadya watches owlishly as he goes to rinse the dish out. Can’t shake the sneaking suspicion that he’s glad for any reason to keep his back turned.

“Cade.”

Who’s a little too heavy-handed putting the glass aside to dry; thankfully the bottom is solid enough that it doesn’t break but there’s always next time. Nadya waits — gives him time to compose himself and turn back around before she’ll keep going.

Instead he grasps the counter’s edge like it’s the only thing keeping him from floating off into the void of space.

“Do I sound like him?” he asks, and when his voice cracks he sags against it even more. “And please… please spare me the false confusion.”

 _You know exactly who I mean,_ is what he doesn’t say. The irony that he’d just tried to pull the same thing isn’t lost on either of them.

It’s a relief though. To not have to… ignore it.

“I don’t know what you want me to say.”

“I want an answer.”

“Well —” Nadya worries her bottom lip; finds a small chipped-off spot on the floor tile and speaks to it instead, “— I mean yes, of course you sound like him. You’re the same… you know what I’m trying to say.”

They weren’t the same, though. That’s why this is so hard on him. Why his shoulders are shaking one wrong word away from a total episode.

“You have the same voice — his accent wasn’t quite right but, uh, yeah.” He doesn’t stop her, so she doesn’t stop. “But if you’re asking me if I looked at him and couldn’t tell the difference between you two? Cadence… that was the problem. That’s what we were all struggling with. The way he talked, how he carried himself; it was all just too strange. Too much, I think. 

“I couldn’t see any of you in him and it—it was scary.” _I thought I’d somehow killed you._ Thankfully Nadya’s able to bite that particular confession back and swallow it down. She’s hurting him enough.

Though she almost doubts it — when Cadence finally glances at her in profile. Hair covering most of his eyes but not so much that she misses the flicker of hope there.

“You’re telling the truth?”

“I’m gonna pretend that doesn’t offend me.” His look turns imploring; _desperate_ even. “Yes, I’m telling the truth. Cynbel was a jerk — pretty much the anti-you. And… _yes,_ he got us out of there alive and _yes_ he helped me try to save Lily even when the others wouldn’t and—and I don’t regret any of that. Not for one second.

“But I also don’t have the words for how relieved I was to see _you_ wake up the other day. None of us knew what would happen while you were unconscious all that time. Serafine looked close to pulling out her hair.” _Two beds, two friends. And two monsters that could have come out on the other side instead._

“Even I’m not sure I really know what happened,” and everything on his face screams about just how much that worries him, “the last thing I recall clearly was being in the front hall, back at the Manor, and running forward as you were attacked. Then…”

He tries to find the words. Nadya gives him the chance because she knows what that’s like. The confusion of knowing you were awake; you were _there…_ and then suddenly doubting everything in your head because that’s no longer the case. But Cadence comes up short, to his chagrin, and just ends up looking like a fish out of water.

 _She knows that pretty well, too._ “It happened. Nothing we can do will change that now. So now we just…”

_BANG._

Another flinch — Nadya doesn’t even realize what she’s doing until her hand is deep in her jacket pocket with the metal ridges of Cadence’s switchblade handle digging into her palm.

 _“I have a few more we could try,”_ comes Serafine’s voice from the front room, _“they are…_ distant, _but not unfriendly.”_

_“No, no way.”_

Adrian’s sigh is soft and weary. His voice so quiet that Nadya almost doesn’t hear him at all. _“Jax, it’s not like we have a ton of options.”_

 _“We don’t need_ options. _We need_ decisions!”

 _Great. More arguing._ She and Cadence glance at one another in silence. _Should we go in there? We should. Do I want to go in there? No, no I don’t, but we have to. You take Raines, I’ll take Matsuo. Ugh, fine!_

The taller goes first — not that it was planned. But it gives Nadya the chance to look Serafine over without Serafine doing the same. Just as she suspected — and just as it’s been every time she thinks no one is watching — the vampiress goes on alert the moment his foot crosses the threshold. Cadence is a trooper, though, and gives her about as much attention as he would the ugly flowery wallpaper.

He turns to take up a chair; isn’t even sitting down before the look is gone from the woman’s furrowed brow. Replaced by a weary smile that instinctively checks Nadya over for signs of (more) damage. “Sounds like you three had another fruitful evening,” he remarks dryly. And gets three nasty stares for his troubles.

“You think this is a time for jokes?” she snarls. But he doesn’t bat an eye.

“I think it’s too damn depressing right now to do anything else.”

Jax resumes his pacing near the window. Nervous energy desperate for an outlet; because somehow fighting back literally hundreds of Ferals was something he could get over in a week and a half. Adrian sits leaned over in his armchair, elbows on his knees and such a _crumpled, forfeiting_ look to his soul that Nadya feels some of it seeping into her pores.

“Adrian?”

He lifts his head with a visible effort; too heavy for him to hold high like the Adrian she knows. She’s seen this look in his eyes before — when she had been returned from Gaius’ grisly dinner party. How is it so much has happened, so much has _changed,_ yet she still feels so helpless to make it better for him? “What can I do?”

 _Nothing,_ and they both know it. Her hand, only half-reached out in offering, slides into his. When he squeezes it’s borderline painful, but she endures. Taking a moment to gather himself, Adrian wets his lips before speaking.

“Something isn’t right. It just isn’t… I feel it,” he grabs his middle with his free hand, “in here. I’ve exhausted every resource pooled between Kamilah and I in the last hundred years. Dozens of networks, forgers, freelancers. There’s just no way they’d all be gone. Not without reason.”

Nadya lowers herself to sit on the arm of his chair. “So we still haven’t been able to get what we learned about the stake to Kamilah, then.” Their faces say it all.

“Do we have _any_ other options?”

“Yes!”

“No, we don’t!” Adrian’s anguish hardens into anger faster than Nadya has time to process. He rounds on Jax hard and resolute. “Because _that is not an option._ Not after everything they’ve sacrificed.”

She peers between Serafine and Jax over Adrian’s shoulder. “What are you talking about?” And anger or not, Adrian isn’t scaring Jax off of his plan easily.

“We need to go home.”

 _Oh._ “But…”

“But what, Nadya? _What?_ Because you’re dead worried, just like I am, hell just like you are, Raines. We don’t know anything — and we have a pretty clear answer on how to fix that. We go back and we help them there, on the home front. And when we know we’ve got our foot in the door then we get back to this Eternal Tree and Gaius-stake. But there’s no stake in the world that will help if we lose the city in the process.”

He burns with passion and conviction. This is Jax; of course he does. Even Nadya finds herself shifting on the cushion, weighing the pros and cons of his argument. “I want to Jax—I do.” And here come the dang tears again. “But what about Lily? If things are really as chaotic in New York as Cade said —”

“— oh they are —”

 _“— if they_ are… we need to keep her somewhere steady, and try everything we can before it’s too late. We wouldn’t be able to do that.”

Nadya tries to meet his eyes but the rebel doesn’t make it easy on her. At least he’s staying silent on purpose; that means he agrees with her whether it helps his case or not.

“I can’t… keep…” Jax’s voice shakes like an earthquake, _“running_ and _abandoning_ the people I promised to protect.”

That same passion and conviction suck the sound out of the room; make it so his hissed anger and clenched teeth sound loud enough to make her ears ring.

“Once was too damn much. I’m not gonna do it again. Not when it makes sense to go back and fight.”

“I’m not sure it does.”

He scoffs at Serafine’s words. “Of course it doesn’t, not to you. All you European vampires know how to do is run and hide.”

Even Cadence looks at him in surprise. “I don’t think that’s really fair… the world is different here.” But he should have kept his mouth shut. Now he’s a target.

“And you sound like you’re conveniently forgetting why that is.”

“I’m not.”

“It wouldn’t be the first thing you’ve forgotten when it suited you.”

Nadya blanches. “Whoa Jax — out of line!”

“No… he’s not.” He’s rattled Cadence; that much is obvious. But unlike he had back in the kitchen, this time the man swallows it down and raises his chin high. “I read the same books you did Matsuo. And maybe I haven’t said it enough, or maybe you weren’t listening the last dozen or so times, but I couldn’t apologize to any of you more than I already have — even if I wanted to!” 

He stands, towers over Jax specifically but he holds his ground. Later on — like way way later on and under better circumstances — Nadya’ll remember this and admire him for it. But right now he just looks like a moron.

“You’re angry,” Cade continues, “I get that. _Fuck,_ do I get that. You’re a man in control of his life; his strength. You _made_ your place in the world to spite anyone who told you that you couldn’t. But this—this _anger_ —comes from powerlessness.”

“You don’t know shit.”

“You can’t protect the people you love. And what you can do — it’s taking too long. Try waiting a hundred goddamned years! I did _everything_ I was supposed to and what did I get for it? I got a fat load of _bullshit!_ I gave up a life! _I gave up a wife!”_

Nadya, Adrian, and Serafine all gasp. _Did you know about this?_ Nadya gives a wide-eyed look to Adrian — but he’s just as surprised.

 _You’re angry._ Well look who’s angry now.

Jax couldn’t care less. He snarls, fangs bared. “Are you _seriously_ making my shit about _you_ right now?”

And… Cadence isn’t. Cadence doesn’t. He shrinks away, all six feet of him seeming to curl in on himself. But he won’t back down.

“No, I’m telling you what you need to understand before anything more happens. Because there will be times your anger seems to come from nowhere; times where the only thing you can think, feel, _bleed_ is a part of that rage. Of feeding it and letting it grow. But that’s all it wants from you. It wants to consume, to live. And there will come a time when you let it at the cost of everything you know is right.”

He shoves a wide hand against Jax’s chest. The man stumbles only barely. _“You know what you_ want _isn’t right, Jax._ You _know_ it puts you in power, and you know fighting will add fuel to the fire. But you also know all that will do is win you the battle and lose you the war. You’ll fight, and be angry, and _still lose everything._ But hey…” —stepping back, hands held up in surrender— “you fed the anger. It got what it wanted. You didn’t.”

If anything the argument could be made that Cadence’s (admittedly decent, in Nadya’s opinion) impassioned speech on anger only served to _make Jax angrier._ Until he surprises them all — and possibly even himself — and stands down.

His nostrils flare; the epitome of restraint.

“I can’t — no, I _refuse_ to sit here with my thumbs up my ass for one more night. No more running around playing hide and seek with a bunch of cowards. They need to know what we know. So how do you suggest we get that in gear?

“We don’t even know if anybody’s still alive.”

“They were the last time I saw them,” says Nadya quietly; almost like an afterthought. It’s like remembering something from a long time ago. The boundaries of it blurred between the waking world and the one of dreams.

Adrian’s hand rests on her knee. “Well, yeah Nadya, we all saw them.”

 _Oh._ She swallows around the sudden lump in her throat and looks away to hide her guilt.

“Unless…” because he’s Adrian, and Adrian knows her so well, “there’s something you’re not telling us…”

“It’s not that I was trying to hide it, I promise —” she throws a hand back towards the depths of the flat, “— I told Lily. But with everything that’s happened, and we needed to focus on Gaius and the memory of the First, and…”

“None of that matters now.” Serafine steps forward; her voice low and soft but that doesn’t make it any less commanding.

“But you need to tell us what you saw.”

Nadya nods.

It’s easier than she expected. And that’s not something she gets to say often. At first it’s a struggle to get everything right; she tells the ending like the beginning and can’t help but feel like she forgets something crucial. But like every other memory or vision once Nadya starts she finds that the words _want_ to be spoken. The events _want_ to be told.

Even if, in their wake, there are only more questions and the same amount of answers.

Beside her, Adrian’s got his deep-thinking face on. At least one of them is. “When was this, again?”

“I don’t know, that’s the hard part. I couldn’t get a date, or figure out if it was before or after Cade was here, or…” Her voice pitches in obvious distress. Immediately Adrian goes back to the soothing motion of running his thumb over her knuckles. It’s a big help, honestly.

“That’s okay. It’s more than we knew before.”

“The question is…” Serafine raises an eyebrow, “can you do it again?”

 _Can she?_ Nadya has no idea. This isn’t like with Serafine; she has no hands to hold. And this isn’t like with Gaius; she doesn’t have an entire library and a bloodline to help give things focus. But none of that really matters now.

“I can’t afford not to try.”

* * *

She wanders, dream-like, through the vast emptiness of the castle. Her feet feel as light as air. Nothing like the memories she’s used to — she’s already wading deep enough to drown and still can’t tell whether or not this is real.

At least Nadya is familiar with this part of the castle. The decor is changed, more deserved and tailored to fit the overall _‘modern tribute to history’_ of the rest of the estate; and there are no more velvet ropes to deter curious minds from closed doors. She may not be lost but that doesn’t mean she knows where she’s going. 

But Nadya doesn’t have time to doubt herself. _Kamilah_ doesn’t have time for Nadya to doubt herself. So she lets her feet take her where she needs to go. Following the grand staircase just off of the main ballroom all the way up, then one floor more, to a set of wide double doors at the far end of the hall.

The chandelier lights catch on the nearby plaque; movement shifts in their dazzling twinkle. She whirls around, fearing for a moment for something behind her, but the corridor is abandoned. It’s just her here.

It couldn’t hurt to double-check. And she’s glad she does; Nadya catches her reflection in the sheet of polished gold and freezes in her tracks. Because that’s _her reflection._ Nadya’s eyes and mouth both wide with surprise. Not Kamilah’s — Nadya’s.

 _That can’t be good,_ she thinks fleetingly. But it doesn’t matter. She can’t let that stop her.

Not now.

She reaches for the gilded handle and pushes the door open to the Banner Westbrook Memorial Library.

In here, everything is exactly the same as before. From the polished display cases to the shelves lined neatly with tomes of all shapes and sizes. Muscle memory even tries to tug her away — just for a moment — and around the corner where it feels like just yesterday Adrian had healed the bruises on her neck.

_Just the other day… and a lifetime ago._

But that’s not where she’s supposed to go, she’s pretty sure, and the impulse passes — easily forgotten. She keeps her feet on the path but doesn’t know where they plan on taking her. Not until she catches sight of a familiar pair of doors tucked away in a darkened corner near the back.

When Nadya enters the portrait hall, she isn’t alone. A familiar figure stands at the very end; his back turned and relaxed in a slight slouch in his gait.

Gaius doesn’t need to turn around, though. His portrait, regal and looming like a giant, does a fine job of glaring at her on its subject’s behalf.

Nadya steels her nerves and keeps moving. She comes up next to him in a way she wouldn’t dare in person. Close enough that a slight shift of her feet could knock them together; like an _‘oops, my bad’_ moment on the average subway commute. Don’t ask her why she does it — she couldn’t tell you. But maybe when she looks back on it she could say it was an act of courage. A way to prove to herself that she’s no longer the girl running scared through museum shelves, or the one who jumped away from the mere memory of him.

Beside her, Gaius shifts his weight from one foot to the other and takes a slow, rich-person-pretentious sip of the liquor in his hand. It’s jarring — no — _disturbing_ to see him act so… _normal._ Even Kamilah tended to unintentionally do her best impression of a living statue when she wasn’t doing anything in particular. But save breathing, here Gaius looks like an ordinary man.

And he is neither.

“Do you remember how it felt, that first taste of the potential of your power?”

Just like _that_ all of her fear rushes back in icy floodwaters. Forget wading, she’s outright drowning. From the inside, somehow. Like it’s taken hold of her veins and filled up her belly and throat and now with nowhere to go but back down into her lungs.

_What are you doing? You’re not really here, remember?_

Oh, her…self… actually makes a really good point. She’s _not_ really here. Gaius is alone — though she’d been aiming for a memory involving Kamilah and this is definitely very much _not that_ but if she can’t get one simple thing right she might as well return to the others with _something._ Information on Gaius’ plans, movements, acts will have to do.

So… wait. Who is he talking to then?

Gaius waits, and waits, and waits for an answer that doesn’t seem to be coming. So unless the painting is going to start talking —

Then he looks down at her. _At Nadya,_ not _through her,_ and all bets are well and truly fucking _off._

She backs away fast, practically tripping under her own feet until her sweating palms collide with the texture of dried oil paint of some vampire she doesn’t recognize. Who cares about any other vampire — _Gaius can see her. How the hell can he see her?!_

Gaius who just watches, cool and impassive, and _clucks_ his tongue when she jostles the frame at her back. “Careful now, Nadya, that piece was the work of a master painter—and a dear friend. I would hate for your clumsiness to ruin it from so far away.”

 _So far away…_ “I’m… not really here?” The same mantra, but now, aloud, she’s uncertain. He’s not exactly the _agreeing_ type.

“Of course not. How would such a thing be possible?”

“I’ve seen… a lot of impossible things lately.”

That earns Nadya a hint of a smile around the lip of his glass. “No doubt you have. Paris has always been a city of unimaginable wonders; wonders that pay no mind to the realms of dark and light. And with someone as well-traveled as our dear Serafine to show you around? Oh you must have been having such a wonderful little trip.”

She wants to shut down, to find the remote and turn this awful show off; to reach out and see if she can grab his throat like she can the painting frame and squeeze like that would do her any good.

But there are are a lot of things Nadya _wants._ She _wants_ Lily to be better with the snap of a finger. She _wants_ Lily and Mari to be able to hold each other again, _wants_ Kamilah in the safety of her arms and vice versa. She _wants_ Cadence to find peace and Jax to find purpose and Serafine and Adrian to get back to the way they had been before the dumb trip down to the dumb crypts.

Just because she wants something doesn’t mean she’ll get it, though. Not without a fight.

So no matter how much she wants to take off running (mentally, physically, psychically) back to Paris and the others and away from Gaius, who knows where they are and who they asked for help and knows exactly how scary that is to think about — she can’t yet.

Not without a fight.

Nadya knows full-well she can’t outwit him in word games. So she defaults to a classic man-deterrent — she straight-up ignores whatever he says.

“If I’m not really here, how can you see me?” _How can you talk to me? Why aren’t you currently killing me?_ The important questions.

Her deflection doesn’t go unnoticed. Gaius is too good for that.

“You tell me.”

“Wow, you’re so original.” She replies, and gives possible the most dramatic eye roll of her life. He doesn’t even flinch. _Darn it._

Instead Gaius shrugs it off. “I would have thought that by now you were tired of being on the sidelines of your own life.”

“I don’t know what that means.”

“Really?” His face falls in mock sympathy. “You don’t find some truth to the sentiment? Or are you as blind in the mind as you are in the eye — to the repeated pattern of events that constantly spiral out of control but never fail to pluck you up into the chaos as they go?”

Nadya keeps her back up against the wall; somewhere safe where no one can sneak up behind her. Gaius is dangerous enough no matter where he is. “You know… I’ve had kind of a long week. I’m really not in the mood for your weird word puzzles.”

“They aren’t puzzles. I couldn’t speak any plainer if I tried.”

“Then I _really_ feel bad for anyone who has to talk to you for longer than five minutes —” —a beat— “— myself included.”

“Maybe this will give you clarity, then. Aren’t you tired, Nadya Al Jamil, of having the events of your life _told_ to you? It seems to be the only constant, to the outside observer.”

Which makes her snort a little too loudly. “I hope you aren’t talking about yourself. Most of the crap going on right now is your fault anyway.”

“I know,” he inclines his head, “so I ought to know better than anyone, wouldn’t you say?”

Nadya _doesn’t_ say — but they both know why that is. He’s right. “I’ll give due credit to your natural curiosity. You’re always asking questions — not necessarily the right ones, or at the right time — but your take initiative to seek out the knowledge you need. But you never really seem to find it for yourself, do you. You simply fumble along on your fragile little mortal body until someone comes along and takes you by the hand. It’s convenient… I’ll give you that too.

“But if there’s one thing I’ve come to _loathe_ about this new century; the age of technology and _modern conveniences,_ is exactly that. Because convenience breeds laziness; breeds contentment and expectation.” His upper lip curls — and just like that his charming little smile becomes a wicked discontent. 

“Here and now you wait on bated breath for me to just _tell you_ the answer. _You_ are the driving force behind everything— _everything_ that has happened and all the things yet to come. Our little _tête-à-tête_ included… but you do not so much as lift a finger to seek your own truths. You would rather they be given to you.”

It’s funny — here Nadya had been ready to accept that this will be the best she gets out of her attempt to breach the psychic barrier and find Kamilah, and to maybe give Gaius a few rousing sassy jabs she wouldn’t dare be brave enough to say in person while she’s at it. But she’s not the one doing the jabbing. Short, sharp and shallow wounds that make her red in the face with her fists balled up tight at her sides.

“You have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Well, no, that’s entirely false. I know everything about you, my little Bloodkeeper. Even things you don’t know about yourself.” Gaius’ eyes flicker red then, so quick and subtle that Nadya doesn’t think he’s even aware it happened.

 _“Especially_ things you don’t know about yourself.”

Her face burns hotly. “And that’s my fault? I didn’t choose to be this. Actually — that was _you_ who chose for me.”

“You can tell yourself that if it helps. Though I can’t say denial makes for the strongest of moral codes.”

“You wouldn’t know a moral code if it poked you in the butt.” Did she really just say that?

The same question is written across his brow as it arches high, dark and neat.

“So when you abandoned the city you yearn so desperately to protect, was that a part of your morals?” _No… he’s not…_ “When you willingly turned tail to run; when you left your friends, family, and… those you _feel affection for_ behind. All part of this upstanding moral code of yours?”

He’s baiting her. Voice lilting, little finger tapping mutely against the side of his tumbler. The picture of easy breezy conversation and he knows it.

She won’t stoop to his level. Nadya answers him honestly; “No, and to tell you the truth I’d give up a lot to have never gotten on that plane. But I shouldn’t have had to leave. Your vision — your perfect vampire world — it’s impossible. I wouldn’t have _needed_ to leave her behind, Gaius, if you weren’t so hell-bent on following in the crazy footsteps of a madwoman.”

The glass shatters in Gaius’ grip. Thin little lines of blood seeping through the crevices in his fist, _drip-dripping_ down onto the no doubt expensive and antique floor runner. His hand snaps open like a trap, and the last shards of broken glass fall from his unmarked hand.

There isn’t a fleck of light left in his eyes.

“Watch your tongue.” And for just a moment, or a shadow of one, Nadya swears she can hear the tiny waver in his voice. Not enough to matter, or be symbolic of anything. But enough to prove a point.

In that shadow of a moment he’s not Gaius, King of Vampires; he’s Gaius, Rheya’s devoted Soldier. Powerless to save her and always—forever—too far away.

Nadya dares to step forward. “Why,” she challenges, “did I say something wrong?” Gaius raises his chin, looks down on her more than he already is; classic power move and she sees right through it.

“Because I don’t think I did. It’s your fault we had to leave, which means it’s your fault Kamilah had to stay behind, and all of it because you’ve spent _three thousand years_ following some version of Rheya’s crazy plan — her _failed_ plan to boot.”

“You know nothing of which you speak.”

“What does that make me then,” she asks, “Am I a _blasphemer,_ Gaius, because I don’t blindly follow the Church of the First Vampire?”

Gaius’ voice rings in her ears. Not the one here in front of her; he doesn’t have the passion for it. But the Soldier, righteous in that cave and ever-loyal at Her side. She’s hearing a memory.

 _“Blasphemer!”_ Echoing out in her mind; filling her with conviction.

_“Traitor.”_

“Is Kamilah a _traitor_ for what she did to you? Not locking you away — that didn’t matter. But she was supposed to be your Queen… until she wasn’t.”

“Insolent little —”

_“Coward!”_

“Oh no you don’t — I’m not done yet.” She _actually_ interrupts him; even Nadya has a hard time believing it. But that’s nothing compared to Gaius, who looks like he’s just been run over. 

“And Adrian too, right? Because you and I both know he was never as loyal a Soldier to you as you were to Her. Then again—talk about high standards. Why do you think that is? Why did you try to build a Soldier only to end up with a _coward?”_

His crystalline eyes go wide. This close Nadya can see the whites all the way around; the hint of the tip of his fangs between parted lips. This time it’s the King of Vampires who steps away, not the little mortal girl. But with the same traces of fear lingering in the air.

And Nadya? She has absolutely no regrets.

Well… maybe one or two. Especially when, finally, Gaius _smiles._

“I see.” _He shouldn’t be smiling._ That doesn’t stop him. “That’s a very… _unique_ selection of words Nadya. Paris has made you quite the young poet from the sound of it.”

She swallows audibly. Where the heck did that confidence go, and can it come back?

“It’s a beautiful city,” she agrees though every word is laced with caution like a thin film of arsenic, “I found it especially helpful in jogging some old memories.”

“I look forward to hearing more about them.”

“Uh…” Suddenly it almost hurts to look at him; like he’s burning alive inside — a sun in flesh. Nadya looks around desperate but in vain; the only eyes that stare back are frozen in time and place. Not even the familiar face beside Isseya’s stoic likeness can help her now.

“I don’t plan on staying — I shouldn’t even be here to begin, so...” You know.

 _Oh, he knows._ There it is; _knowing_ shining through all across his face. It occurs to Nadya then, when it might be two seconds shy of too late, that she’s the one out of the loop.

“Maybe not tonight, but I have every confidence I’ll be seeing you _very_ soon.”

He looks like his soul is on fire but that doesn’t change the fact that the hand he reaches up to brush a thumb across Nadya’s cheek isn’t anything other than ice cold. He whispers, like an afterthought; _“And with so much for you and I to catch up on… after all these years.”_

Gaius can touch her.

_Gaius can touch her._

Nadya makes a run for it. Sprinting back down the length of the room to the doors both barely hanging ajar. W _hat am I doing? I need to wake up. How do I do that? Figure that out later! RUN NOW!_

Holding her hands out in front of her, Nadya prepares to scramble a flight to safety — and collides with solid stone instead. A stone that grips her upper arms, feels her shaking, and looks down with ancient, distant eyes riddled with confusion.

 _“Nadya?_ But how —” Valdas cuts himself off before he can fully ask, and looks between her and the approaching Gaius with uncertainty. Realization comes over him and eclipses the muted melancholy; a shadow over the moon.

Nadya would have struggled if she had the time. But things are always moving a little too fast for her these days. And here, in this semi-reality where she’s both at Marcel’s castle in New York _and_ in the apartment in Paris, is no exception.

As it is, she barely manages to wrench one arm from his grasp before the Trinity vampire tugs her by the other. His breath and the whiskers of his beard tickle in her ear. _“Remember what I told you—”_ Then the scrape of millennia-old callouses on fingertips presses at her temple.

* * *

Nadya’s eyes fly open. The sting of unshed tears finds release, warm tracks carving into her cheeks. She wishes one would warm the place where Gaius had touched her cheek, but wishes don’t always come true.

She can still feel it. Still see the details in his irises, and that awful light glinting in his eyes.

“I don’t like that face.”

Jax’s surly comment brings her back. Back from _where_ she doesn’t know — doesn’t _want to._ All she knows is she’s back, all four limbs and ten fingers that wind their way into the fabric of Adrian’s jacket and refuse to let go.

“Hey, hey,” he shushes her; pets her head slow just like Lily would, “you’re okay, you’re okay now. You’re back here, you’re okay.”

He’s stayed kneeling by her side this whole time, apparently. Not just a tether to Kamilah and home but to Nadya herself. Right now Adrian’s hand on top of her head might be the only thing keeping her from dissipating into oblivion.

Serafine is in the same seat across the table; looking like she doesn’t know what to make of Nadya in this state. Join the club sister.

“There is — _hein,_ where are you going?!”

Just like she had in the portrait hall, Nadya takes off without looking back. Her limbs prickle, angry pins and needles demanding she slow down. But she can’t. She’s still… not here, not here, not anything. But in all she doesn’t know, the one thing she does is easily plucked from the air.

“I need a window.”

“Oh, I think she might be sick.” Says Cadence with an audible cringe. Nadya ignores him.

“A window! Now!”

She’s been wandering this apartment like a ghost for the last week and a half; she knows where the windows are. But between her sleepy limbs and the feeling of drowning in her own lungs it takes Nadya more than a little effort to find them.

“Open the damn window, Raines!”

“Jax, I swear —”

But Adrian puts his frustration aside — for her. For his worry for her. In a blurred step he passes her by and unlatches the window, pushing it out wide open for her the moment she arrives at the ledge. Nadya collides with the sill hard enough to knock the wind (and nonexistent watery fear) from her lungs; leaving her breathless.

“What do you think you’re doing, foolish girl?” Serafine keeps going, keeps scolding her — but she’s just wasting her voice. It buzzes like a fly in Nadya’s ear; fading, fading, then gone altogether. All of their questions, guesses, demands end the same way.

Pure silence. She shreds through it with her tongue like a knife.

“He said he’d be seeing me _‘very soon.’”_

Her friends exchange similar glances. Worry on fear on an understanding because who else would she be talking about? There’s only one man that makes sense.

“That’s not possible Nadya.” Adrian tries his best to reassure her — but his own hand betrays him. This time it rests on her far less steady.

“Moreover it’s not happening. So why don’t we close the window, get something in your stomach, and…”

His voice trails off; watching, transfixed, as Nadya lifts her arm out from the window. Her finger pointed to the slumbering outer-city streets below.

A tiny red light moves in the darkness, flickering and spluttering on its dying breath. The cigarette filter serves one last inhale before being tossed in a small arc to the pavement underfoot.

A sleek, expensive shoe comes down and grinds the last of the embers into powder.

She doesn’t recognize the man — but she doesn’t need to know _who_ he is; _what_ he is shown in red eyes that flash and fade back to the play-act of a mortal. His shoes are dark, his suit is dark; the close-cropped and almost military shave of his hair is dark, too.

But not his smile. That is warm, inviting even in the black of night. Like the cherry-end of a cigarette.

The woman who comes up beside him, though — there’s no mistaking her.

Isseya looks up first. Locking gazes with Nadya, no searching needed. The sickening truth right before their very eyes. _They knew we were here._

Gaius’ laughter still thrums in her blood. His words burrow deep in the marrow of her bones.

_“I have every confidence I’ll be seeing you very soon.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you're ready -- next week is the finale and epilogue of book 4! Don't worry if things seem unfinished, this _is_ broken into 2 parts after all. And I can't wait to itroduce you guys to Isseya's new... "friend."
> 
> As always, comments and critique would be fantastic. See you next week!


	31. The Last Act part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gaius has sent Isseya to Paris with one mission: bring Nadya back to him at any cost. Things go about halfway as planned, and Cadence unwittingly rekindles an ancient rivalry. The fate of New York is revealed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **content warnings:** language, violence, blood, hallucinations, dissociation, canon-typical violence, blood-drinking

_"Allez,_ for fuck’s sakes will you two _move faster!”_  


They hear the crash and shatter of glass doors through the still-open window. No time to close it now. No time to do anything. _Oh god._

“It’s a delicate-fucking-process!” Cadence snaps back, fangs bared, but this time Serafine meets him eye for eye and, well, fang for fang.

“Then _be delicate,_ but _be quick about it._ We’ll try to stay together, but if splitting up becomes necessary, we meet up in the heart of the city as planned, yes?”

Nadya’s no use, still a little weak in the knees and there’s no way she was going to be able to help carry Lily in the event of an emergency evacuation from their hiding hole anyway. She hangs back, makes sure to stay out of the way, but keeps looking back and forth at the moving vampires hard enough to crack something in her neck.

“Nadya —” Serafine shoves a duffel bag into her hands; she fumbles but manages to hold onto a zipper, “— to the kitchen. Get as much of your blood as you can carry.”

She sees the flicker of hesitation in Nadya’s eyes, the way she looks over the woman’s shoulder to where Adrian and Cadence shoulder Lily’s limp weight as fast as they can without too much disturbance.

With a huff, Serafine grabs Nadya’s upper arms hard enough to hurt. _Fresh bruises,_ that’s why it hurts. Fleetingly she remembers Valdas; the fingertip-touch.

“I need you to trust me right now. Trust that we will get Lily out of here safely. _Please, petit._ We are in more danger than you can fathom.”

She can _fathom_ it pretty well, thanks. But Nadya nods and bolts off to do whatever (little) she can.

There’s a collective regret about the open window again — the next sound to catch on the wind sounds like banshees shrieking at midnight.

They’re getting closer.

 _“Argh,”_ Adrian growls in frustration, “just give her to me, here — watch the head.” He cradles Lily like a long and gangly baby; but does it all on his own. Cadence flashes him a questioning look.

_BANG!_

That would be the stairwell door. But which floor?

“You’re the strongest of any of us right now.” Adrian rasps in one harsh breath. His struggle and care to keep the young vampire in his arms as stable as possible is taking its toll on his still-starving body. “You’ve taken her on before, can you do it again?”

Serafine stops, rope in a loop over her shoulder _(where did she… nevermind)._ She looks between the pair with growing panic as it dawns on her, suddenly, that they aren’t _nearly_ as panicked about their incoming visitors as she is.

“That _harpy_ of _Les Trois Amants_ is the least of our problems right now —” she looks at them all in a whirlwind, “— or don’t you recognize the man at her side?”

Jax shrugs. “It’s not the other guy with a buzz-cut, right?”

“This isn’t the time for _jokes!”_

Serafine’s voice croaks; she lets out a strangled noise. Adrian shifts, wants to reach out for her, but has to think better of it for Lily’s sake. Nadya doesn’t let his sacrifice go unnoticed.

“Calm down, Serafine. Who is this guy?” And it pains her, that much is obvious, but she tries.

“That is _Marc Antony,_ you fools.”

Another _BANG!_ punctuates the silence; how they take in the reality and gravity of her revelation.

Nadya clears her throat. “You mean, like…”

“Like Gaius’ _consolation prize_ after he failed to secure Caesar for his Court. Arguably a better choice for the King; and a terrible sentencing for the world.”

 _BANG!_ And this one is louder than the rest. They’re at the end of the hall. Probably not anymore.

“Processlater—runnow!” 

Nadya turns and the door splinters open at her back. She grabs for the duffel strap across her chest, barely one foot off the ground—

Then the world is going sideways, Nadya’s going backward, and her head slams into the dated plaster hard and heavy and _hurting._ She slumps down, head hanging forward, and struggles to swallow down her bile.

Black boots come into view, their owner looming over her.

Isseya crouches down, dusting plaster from her leather pants. “Hello again, little Bloodkeeper.”

A familiar pain ignites atop her head. Isseya’s nails like claws raking over her scalp to yank her up by the knotted locks in her hair. Holding her on the tips of her toes like a puppet on strings.

“You—don’t—” teeth clenched, burning tears in her eyes keeping the woman a dark blur of red eyes and shining fangs, “—please—don’t do—this—”

Isseya snarls and leans forward, the soft whisper of her lips a stark contrast to the raw wound of her words.

“I gave you a chance to avoid this, _girl._ You wasted it— _you_ did. Don’t tell me I don’t have to do shit. You’ve given us no other choice.”

Nadya can only sob; words beyond her now.

_“Isseya!”_

The woman whirls around at her name; shouted over the _crack_ of splintering wood as Serafine and Antony move as blurs only distinguishable by color and size. Splinters of wood cut into Nadya’s cheeks and she tries to recoil, turning her face away in just enough time to see Cadence braced in the doorway to the kitchen.

Surprise—pain—loss—anger— _hatred._ There one instant and gone the next in a whirlwind. Isseya can’t tell who she wants to hate more; him for calling out to her with that voice he _knows_ she could never ignore or herself for falling for it time and time again.

Jax comes out of seemingly nowhere at her side. Doesn’t give Isseya the moment’s rest to decide where to aim her anger as he shoves his boot in the middle of his chest. A powdery print left in the center before she goes flying backwards into the far wall.

_“Nadya! Come on!”_

Everything ringing in her ears.

_“Get her out of here!”_

Jax’s hand on her wrist, pulling her towards the open window. Adrian clings tightly onto the fragile form still in his arms, one foot over the wall and out into the night but he’s frozen in place, fixated; focus pulled to the iron-wrought grip Antony has on Serafine’s sword arm before he snaps it at the wrong angle.

“It’s been some time, Serafine.”

She snarls, bestial; in a way Nadya had previously thought only reserved for Cadence and Cynbel. “Not— _nngh_ —long enough, I assure you!”

He laughs, deep and rich and _so damn casual_ for the moment at hand. “You wound me!”

“Not to worry—I’m trying!”

A tight grip on Nadya’s upper arm makes her jump violently — Jax rounds in front of her hard and resolute.

“Go, follow Adrian. I’ll be right behind you.”

“But—” Back to Serafine who resorts to shouldering the older vampire through the wall of what was temporarily Nadya’s bedroom. To the _thud_ of Cadence as he collides back to the floor, Isseya wrenching herself out from under dust and the upended coffee table to bear down on him in fury. “—Jax I can’t—”

 _“NO, Nadya!_ Not this time!” He shakes her roughly. “Do you understand me?! They want you, they can’t get you! Now GO!”

Nadya is turned and shoved towards the open window before she can get another word out. Adrian’s body angled towards her, reaching out the only way he can. He jerks his chin down to the knot of rope pooled at his feet. “They’ll cover us for as long as they can. Come on.”

“We can’t _leave them!”_ Because surely if anyone— _anyone_ —understands, it’s him.

And he does. It’s all over his face; and covered with the same resolute decision he had tried to pull on her back in the Cathedral.

“I—I know. But this…” His gaze drops down to her feet and goes wide with shock; fear. “Nadya, you’re bleeding.”

 _Huh?_ She wipes her hand over her head but it comes back dry. Nothing over her front, then she feels the trickle down the back of her leg. Looks down in horror to see the blood seeping into the carpet at her feet.

_The duffel._

_Her blood!_

Isseya had slammed her into the wall and the collision must have broken the seals on the blood bags inside. “We can’t go without it!”

“Nadya—no—”

“Lily doesn’t stand a chance without it—and I did _not_ go through that hell to lose her now!”

Adrian tries to grab her but catches himself at the last second — swooping one arm back under Lily before her body hits the floor. Nadya can hears him shout behind her but his words are lost in the chaos. She’s already skidding on her knees through the fallen doorway to the kitchen.

There’s no time to be squeamish now. Not even with the coppery smell hits her nostrils, bag hurled back over her shoulder and already dripping red through the nylon. Nadya grits her teeth and starts yanking the old bags out to scatter on the floor. _You’ve literally held your own guts in with your bare hands,_ she reminds herself with bitter determination, _this is for Lily—don’t forget this is for Lily._

Inside the fridge there are only a handful of bags left. She had grabbed as much as she could and look how that turned out. The rest is useless; smeared, splattered in uneven patterns over the tile around her. The cold plastic slips through her red fingers; once, twice, and with a scream of wordless noise the third time she manages to get them close enough to scoop into the bag at her feet.

“Come on… come on…” Stupid fingers stop slipping on the stupid zipper! Fuck! She has no other choice she can see, and bends down to bite hard on the metal and yank the duffel closed.

 _Yes!_ Once the bag is securely back around her Nadya scrambles to stand, to turn and run as fast as her legs will carry her back to the window and Adrian and—

And instead she collides with a vampire as solid as stone for the _second_ time tonight.

“A pleasure to finally make your acquaintance, Miss.”

Nadya looks up just in time to see the last of Serafine’s attack knit closed across the curve of Antony’s cheek. He shakes it off like one might a pesky fly; all of his focus trained on the heavy hands he rests on her shoulders. “The infamous Bloodkeeper… you really are the talk of the Court. I found myself unable to pass up the opportunity to meet you in person.”

She tries to break free; even when it feels like he’s pressing her down so hard she’ll break through the floor she tries as hard as she can. But the tile is slick with blood and he’s _two thousand years old_ and at this point she’s experienced this enough to know exactly how badly it can go.

“Can’t say the feeling’s mutual.”

Antony’s amusement falters; the barest betrayal of a frown. “I see. Best we take care of this swiftly, then.”

Before he can move the sound of a cracking neck breaks the strangely echoing silence. 

“My sentiments exactly.”

Then there’s a different grip on Nadya’s wrist — _people need to stop manhandling her this is getting ridiculous_ — and it’s tugging her to the side just in time for a blurred movement to send Antony soaring through the air and back into the interior wall.

The lights flicker once—twice—and die. The room plunged into darkness. Sparks flashing from torn wires in the hole in the wall, the electricity crackling violent and intense.

Gooseflesh prickles over her arms and Nadya holds her hands up, like that’ll defend her from anything, but no touch comes.

“Are you okay?” asks Cadence; and when her eyes adjust to the lack of light she finds him on one knee in front of her; looking over her blood-soaked clothes to see how much of it is freshly spilled. “You should have listened to R—”

The sound of shifting wood and rubble cuts him off. Antony stands from the mess with tears in his suit and a piece of his lower jaw sitting at an odd angle. He sets it with a quick twist of his neck and steps out of the heap; eyes leveling bright and red on Cadence’s face with an unfamiliar recognition.

Cadence locks with tension in front of her. She knows that reaction all too well, now. Both of them do.

“I admit none of us really believed in your miraculous return, _Pathicus,”_ Antony muses, cracking his knuckles on each hand, rolling his shoulders; proving he can shake them off with barely a thought.

“I’ll give you cover,” hisses Cadence without turning back to look at her, “when I say run… you run.”

“But on the bright side, I’m glad for it.”

“Cade—”

“No arguments. Yes?”

“Yes.” She finally says, and only then does he let her go.

Cadence stands, feet planted and shoulders squared. Something about the sight makes Antony’s upper lip curl.

“I would have loathed not to have been there to do the deed myself.”

“You and quite a few others.”

“Seniority rules.”

Nadya swallows her heart back into her chest. It pounds so fast, so loud — she nearly misses it.

 _“RUN!”_ He shouts, moments before the heel of Antony’s palm slams into his lower jaw.

Blood splatters in droplets on the floor. Tiny little garnets that slick and smear underfoot as strength battles strength battles something else — something a little more like the will of survival.

Cadence collapses back, limbs flailing, and collides with the small kitchen table. The wood is weak, can’t bear the full brunt of his weight, and together they crash to the floor violently. The loud noise is enough to shake Nadya from her stupor and send her practically dancing back on both feet to avoid being caught in the heap.

She’s terrified. Again. That seems to be happening a lot lately.

But she doesn’t want to abandon him like this — no matter how strong his opponent is. The last time she did it hadn’t been Cadence who came back.

_What if this time is the same?_

Perhaps the scariest part is how _human_ Antony’s eyes look as he swing his head around. Gaze level, watching Nadya brace herself in the middle of the doorway trying to decide whether to run forward or back, and still that same warm brown color. _Not how a vampire is supposed to look,_ she thinks.

But this isn’t _a vampire._ This is… yeah she’s still trying to wrap her head around the reality of how that sentence ends. _Marc Antony, the vampire._

“Shame you don’t listen very well.”

Marc Antony, the vampire; who is no longer across the room and instead right up in Nadya’s face. Who snatches a hand out and grabs her wrist hard enough to break. “I won’t say this is my favorite part. But those of us who know how the game is played… we don’t break the rules when we don’t need to.”

There’s a blur of darkness over his shoulder; movement too fast for her mortal eyes. Then Nadya cries out in surprise; sharp pain, bright white behind her eyes squeezed tightly closed, and the hold on her wrist is gone in the next instant.

Bloodied knuckles in a grip tight around a tanned throat, the wounds already healed over. The no-doubt expensive leather of Antony’s boots squeaking against the floor, trying and failing to gain his footing. But Cadence is taller and holds him aloft and pinned against the far wall with ease.

That… _is_ Cadence, right?

Because she’s not sure. Between the safe at _Persephone_ and the top part of the Feral’s head torn off and flying across the Manor hall and the way there’s no comparison—none at all—when Jax is backhanded hard enough to fly through the air and every warning Serafine ever screamed through her tears; she just isn’t. Countless times, all of them unmatched — and what they meant about who—or what—was actually standing in front of her now.

“C—” She tries to call out a name, but her voice freezes on which one to say. _She doesn’t know._

“You know… there were more than a few times I was beaten to a pulp by Carlo’s men.” And the sheer relief when she recognizes the name from New Orleans is enough to punch the air from Nadya’s lungs; tears salty on her tongue while she cradles her wrist close.

“I was fresh from the war. Still new to this life, or so I thought. They had been in the de la Rosa family for a generation, some of them longer. Between then and now… I think I get it.”

Strands of blond hair fall thin in front of Cadence’s eyes. Nadya can see the bright red of them reflected in the backdrop of the night sky from the kitchen window. He lifts Antony higher and with no effort at all.

“I lost to those men because I expected to lose; because I thought there was no other option. I thought I was younger, so my body acted like it.” Shoulders tensing, rolling back; for the first time a flicker of concern wavers Antony’s steady frown. “Following that same logic now… I’ve got quite a few centuries on you, don’t I, _domine?”_

He tosses Antony aside like a doll; like he weighs nothing at all. A flick of his wrist that sends the former Roman general right in the path of the fridge. The metal catches him, cradles him; door bending inward and the contents of the shelves joining the mess on the floor. The lightbulb inside shatters under the pressure and the distant, white-noise hum of the fan splutters and dies.

But this time Antony was ready. This time he leaps back to his feet without respite and brushes the fall off of his shoulder with a flippant hand. “There’s that look. That _arrogance._ I prefer it this way — better a fair fight than none at all.”

Everything shifts; the air, the tension, the looks on the vampires’ faces. So fast Nadya almost misses them. Maybe she would have — were she not the Bloodkeeper. But she is, and she doesn’t miss a thing.

Because she can feel it all.

Centuries piled on in staggering weight and animosity; changing both everything and, outwardly, nothing at all. But he’s leveled the playing field now. Nadya feels it. Antony, too.

They all do.

“What… are you?”

His shoulders sink slightly, but he doesn’t turn around at the sound of Isseya’s voice. Not when it’s a whisper, and not when it’s a cracked, splintered fragment of a scream. _“Answer me!”_

“I don’t have an answer to give.”

“Lies.”

“If I did, I would. Everything would be so much easier on all of us.”

The vampiress steadies herself on the door frame, impressions of her fingertips pressing down and breaking the drywall.

 _“‘All of us,’”_ she repeats — like she doesn’t know the language, “meaning…”

The blond vampire looks up and Nadya’s heart stops.

It’s an opening Antony cannot and will not waste. Rushing forward, fangs bared — but even he isn’t fast enough to avoid the hand that catches him by the back of the neck. Claws piercing flesh, blood spotting along his collar. He tries to turn, to see the face that caught him by surprise, but doesn’t get the chance before the grip closes down and his neck snaps with a sickening _crack._

Antony’s eyes are closed before he even makes it to the ground.

Isseya steps over his body — _still a body,_ Nadya notices, _not a pile of ash_ — and closes the gap between herself and Cadence. One hand with fingertips still stained with Antony’s blood comes up and strokes the cut of his jaw.

The pair share the same look; like reflections. Longing, loss, pangs of regret. After a moment, Cadence finally reaches up and presses his palm against her cheek.

“I’m not him.” He whispers hoarsely.

Together they stand still; years stretching through the passing seconds. Finally Isseya lets her eyes flutter closed. The tears clinging to her dark lashes finally get the chance to fall.

“I know.” She shudders a gasp; breathes through the daggers in her chest sharper than they were all the years before. “Consider this to be my last act of free will.”

So that’s what Valdas had meant. 

There’s a shine in Cadence’s eyes. He parts his lips, looks for a moment like he’s going to do it — he’s going to tell her about the Cathedral, about what happened, about…

The moment passes when Isseya steps away.

“He won’t stay down for long, resilient bastard,” she looks over her shoulder to Antony’s unconscious form, “though I’ll admit I’ve been waiting to do that for weeks now. It’s not as satisfying as I thought it would be…”

Nadya swallows. “Is he still…?” But Isseya’s sharp look cuts her off with a flinch.

“Yes, he’s still alive. And I can’t be gone when he comes to. Not if I have any intention of returning to Valdas.”

There’s no question about it. So why does Cadence ask?

“What if you came back with us? We could —”

“No.” The sharp edges, barely easing up, are back without warning. Isseya’s glare is cold and growing all the more distant. “I wouldn’t — I _couldn’t._ But—neither can you.” She looks between Nadya and Cadence both. “It would be a death sentence, and would make this, here, look like a kindness. Surely you know by now.”

_“Nadya!”_

_Shit._

The anger in Jax’s growl breaks any spell that might have held them all there — maybe for eternity if they weren’t careful. Nadya dashes back into the living room and gasps, hand coming over her mouth, at the mess of mangled bruises and gaping wounds riddled across Serafine’s body.

Jax is kneeling at her side; looks up just in time to push every ounce of his frustration in one long look, before he jerks his chin up at her.

“The blood. Now.”

Nadya struggles to pull it over her head fast enough, skidding to her knees beside Jax in time for him to grab it and rip the zip apart with brute strength. He grabs one bag and forces it into her mouth; thankfully it doesn’t take much more than that for her survival instinct to kick in and fangs to descend and tear the plastic open. She takes several long drinks before her hands have the strength to grab on; reaching desperately for the second and tearing it from Jax’s grip without hesitating.

His sigh is weak, croaked and now without effort. With tentative fingers Nadya reaches up and brushes away some of his hair matted at his temple where a cut still oozes thin blood. There’s one blood bag left — she doesn’t think twice before all but forcing it into his hand.

“You too,” she insists — thankfully for them both he’s too exhausted and weak to decline.

It’s not much between the pair of them. Enough to stop the bleeding and fade most of their bruises to mottled greens and yellows but not much more. Nadya would offer her wrist, neck, _ankle_ up to help any more if she could but she still has a few wounds of her own and her wrist is most likely _very_ broken and not at all palatable.

Serafine slowly comes to, French mumbled and thick on her tongue as she tries to take in her surroundings. “Ad…ri…”

“He’s fine,” Nadya says — and throws a look to the window and the rope still draped over and out, “he got away. He’s safe, probably heading to the meetup point. Take it easy, you’re still healing… but…”

But she hesitates because saying anything more would be akin to lying.

Jax eases himself up with grunts of effort; helps Serafine do the same only when he’s steady on both feet. “If you think this is gonna go undiscussed, Nadya, I swear to god…”

“If I hadn’t, you wouldn’t have anything to heal with, so I don’t wanna hear it.”

“If you _hadn’t—”_

Cadence and Isseya shuffle out of the kitchen together and Jax practically bites off his own tongue, cutting himself off. Nadya can feel Serafine grow stony behind her and reaches out in a meek attempt at reassurance.

“What are you idiots still doing here?” Isseya snaps. Looks briefly like she has much more to add to it but she bites her tongue instead. “You are weak, and ill-fed, and need to leave. Neither Antony nor I are gravely injured. If you’re still here when he wakes up, you’re fucked.”

“What’s going on here?” Jax snarls, but the question is aimed principally at Cadence.

“She’s giving us an opening. We need to take it.”

“She came here to kidnap Nadya!”

“No, Jax, he’s right.” Nadya doesn’t smile at the vampiress — after all the pain she’s felt at the hands of this woman she doubts she ever could. But they aren’t in any position to be looking gift horses in the mouth. “I don’t trust her, but…” The look she gives him is imploring.

_What other choice to do we have right now?_

“This is bull —” Jax stares at each of them in disbelief. “— this is insane! We’re _not_ trusting her. And we’re not _running._ We get Adrian and Lily and we get on the first plane home. I’ve had enough of this shit. I’m taking the fight to him.”

“Returning to New York is no longer an option.” Isseya meets the rebel’s glare with her own.

“I beg your fuckin’ pardon?”

The Trinity vampire sweeps a long look over them, the furrow in her brow slowly easing from disgust into… disbelief?

Raw, unfiltered disbelief at that. “You don’t know.”

“We’ve been… not here.”

“Obviously.” And both Jax and Serafine look ready to shoot down any questions she might ask, but Isseya surprises them both — she doesn’t. “Otherwise it would not have been so easy to find you, I see now. If you had known what happened… only the suicidal would have stayed somewhere he knew to find you.”

Cadence stands hunched, eyes trained down at his shoes and the bloodstains in the carpet. She’s already told him what she keeps withholding from them — awesome.

“What do you mean… what happened?” asks Nadya warily. No one else does.

“Three days ago, the last of the resisting faction was captured at the harbor. The ones you called your Clans — those who did not immediately bend the knee. I wasn’t there myself, but there were thirty, maybe forty left who were captured and taken before the Godmaker at his Court. Those who swore fealty to him were allowed to live. Those who did not…”

Her words are left hanging, but it’s not exactly hard for them to fill in. Just like it isn’t hard for Nadya to know she’s full of bullcrap — she has to be. No, really, she has to be. Because if she isn’t, that means…

That means…

“Enough of this. Go—run—hide wherever you can for as long as you can. But do not dare show your face back on his shores. He wants the Bloodkeeper,” she nods to Nadya, “he would not say why, but I don’t dare to guess. Whatever you must do, do it. But _he cannot have her.”_

“Tell me you’re not believing this,” mutters Jax under his breath, and from the looks of it he fully expects Serafine to take his side. Only… she doesn’t.

“Maybe not everything… but I know better than to think she would be so willing to send _him_ to his death.” Cadence shifts under the scrutiny of the woman’s glare. Isseya, however, doesn’t seem all too perturbed by it.

“If he comes with us, we will at least be safe long enough to regroup.”

 _Three days ago…_ Because Nadya still hasn’t quite let that part go. How could they?

 _“Allez,_ Nadya, _allez.”_ Serafine keeps a firm hand at her back, all but shoving her towards the window and the rope to freedom(?)

Instead she digs in her heels and tries to look back to Isseya, who lingers one last look at Cadence’s back before she makes for the kitchen.

“Isseya!” She calls, but goes ignored. “Isseya, wait! What happened to those who didn’t join Gaius?”

“Help me,” growls Serafine, then there’s another pair of hands helping urge Nadya out into the night.

“Isseya!”

“Nadya — stop.”

“No—shut up! Isseya! Tell me what happened!”

The shadows of the apartment swallow her up before Nadya can get her answer.

“We have to go back.”

“No, Nadya.”

“No—she needs to tell me what happened—”

“I’m sorry.”

Jax has never apologized to her before. Not even when they were facing an army of Ferals. He shouldn’t be apologizing now.

“Jax… she…”

“I’m sorry,” he repeats, and pulls her into a one-armed embrace for safety before he begins the rappel, “I’m so sorry.”

_“…No…”_

He holds her tight and kicks off. Serafine and Cadence keep pace on either side; agile movements down rails and pipes towards the rapidly approaching ground.

Without another word they disappear into the night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Can you believe we're already here? But wait... there's more...


	32. The Circumstances (Epilogue)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The winds of change blow down the eastern seaboard all the way to New Orleans. While on date night, Taylor and Ryder join Katherine in finding out just how bad things are for their friends abroad.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **content warnings:** language, mild innuendo

_Several days earlier..._   


By the time Taylor takes his fourth lap around the perimeter of their floor, Ryder decides enough is enough. Reaching out to catch his wrist before he can get too far — he pulls the halfling back into the booth and practically on top of his lap. It’s about the only place he doesn’t get any resistance these days.  


Not-spoken too soon. Immediately the hunter has his arms full of squirming anxiety with blond hair and, upon closer inspection, a few scraps of skin missing from his bottom lip. Worn away by teeth picking relentlessly.

“Not right now, Nik,” mumbles Taylor restlessly, “I’ve just — I’ve gotta move. Too much energy, you know?”

“Oh, I know. You’ve been doin’ laps in bed all week.”

Taylor’s nose crinkles at that. Not because he feels bad about it or anything, but he knows how little sleep Nik gets as it is and the thought of being yet another thing keeping him awake just drops a cherry on top of his worries.

“… Sorry.”

For both their sakes it’s shrugged off; forgotten. For a lot more than that, too. They can’t afford to get into any argument tonight, no matter how fickle.

“I would’a thought a world-class actor like yourself would be better at playin’ it cool.”

Taylor blinks in surprise. It’s enough to still him for the moment. “I’m _totally_ playing it cool.”

“Sure — and I’m a pixie.” Ryder jerks his chin up and out, motioning for Taylor to give a (subtle) look at the booths around them. Most notably how his constant round-and-round-and-round has them on edge too; shifting weights and too many drinks ordered to quell the jitters even for a crowd as uppity as _Persephone’s._

Of course, being Taylor, he’s about as subtle as a freight train, but the point gets got.

“Sorry,” force of habit, “I’m just…”

“Hey, I get it. An’ I know it’s been a bit since you’ve been on a job with me but you’ve got to relax or it’ll all be for nothin’.”

A job; the way he says it so casually. Taylor scoffs.

“This isn’t just any old job Nik — and you know it.”

“Sure I do. But if we don’t treat it like any old payday things tend to go wrong. The pressure…” resting broad, scarred hands on his boyfriend’s trembling shoulders — thumbs pressing deep to try and relieve some of that tension, “will keep ya from makin’ the right calls when and where they need made.”

A few moments of silence and circles of pressure at the young man’s collarbone and eventually— _finally_ —Taylor relaxes. Enough that Ryder can let him sit all on his own, even.

“We’re exactly where we need to be,” the man continues lowly, “nothin’ more we can do but watch and wait.”

 _But that’s all they’ve been doing;_ and Taylor has to physically bite his tongue to keep the words from being said. Ryder’s well aware just as Taylor’s well aware and pointing it out doesn’t do either of them any good. If it did then something big would have happened by now.

No word from Cadence. No word from Nadya — or any of them. Just a month of watching the news reports out of New York City getting weirder and more dangerous. A month… and tonight.

 _Come to_ Persephone. _Just after sunset. Make yourself seen, and whatever you do, under no circumstances are you to approach me. Stay away. For your own good._

_I._

Doesn’t exactly take a spy-criminal-mastermind to figure out what has Isadora de la Rosa reaching out for the first time since the Council meeting Cadence had called. Something’s going on, something she can’t say to them in person or via letter or messenger. Something that made her shut down _Flechette_ for ‘temporary renovations’ that definitely weren’t needed at the beginning of the week and kept her from responding to any of the fancy-pants official missives Vera had sent on their behalf under the title of the Smoke.

Ryder reaches for his glass and downs the last dregs of his bourbon with a sigh. “Still think we should’a brought backup.”

“Yeah and I’m still kinda disturbed by that.” It’s not an unreasonable reaction in Taylor’s honest opinion. Since when did _Nik Ryder_ ask for backup?

Since recently, apparently. “I take risks but I know when they’re worth taking. And there’s not a damn thing that could ever be worth takin’ on vampires. Especially ones like Smith was goin’ on about.”

Old, bloodthirsty, powerful and power-craven vampires, to be more specific.

_“Ask me nicely and I’ll think about it.”_

Together Taylor and Nik whip their heads around so fast they nearly collide — and wouldn’t that have been something. But really, in retrospect, neither man is surprised that the booth behind them is occupied by a familiar cheeky voice.

Katherine slings her arm around the back of her booth, turning to face them with an eyebrow raised and less mirth in her smile than normal; which isn’t saying much. Unlike everyone else around the club (Taylor and Nik excluded; only because they spent their ‘Fancy Party Threads’ budget on more important things this month — like groceries, and Garrus’ rent) she’s kept her leathers on for tonight. Hair tightly woven in a long violet braid kept out of her eyes and with her muddy boots carelessly kicked on top of the shiny chrome table in front of her.

He’s honestly never been so happy to see her in his life.

_Well… unless that time… nevermind._

“What,” she glances between them with mild amusement, “don’t tell me you two idiots are _surprised._ You’re like Tweedledee and Tweedledum without an adult to make sure you don’t burn the place down.”

Ryder groans with the effort of his eye-roll. “You accidentally let _one fuckin’ elemental_ loose on an abandoned warehouse and never hear the end of it.”

“You couldn’t stop a fire elemental on a _harbor pi—_ you know what, no, we’re not doing this right now.”

“You started it!”

“And I’m ending it —” Katherine swings her legs down and stands, cracking her neck side to side, “— especially since you can’t seem to banter and pay attention at the same time.”

They follow the path of her eyes down below, through the iron-wrought ornamental railing to the level below. Between the gambling tables, bar, and dance floor it takes Taylor’s senses a second to adjust and focus on sight over everything else — just one of those not-at-all-cute quirks that came with developing his fae heritage.

Lo and behold — and like she didn’t vanish off the face of the earth for a brief period of time — Isadora de la Rosa crosses the main floor of the club with the same confident stride she does anything. She doesn’t weave in and through the crowd; they part for her because they know it’s their job to. And those who don’t learn. Fast.

Even from this distance he can feel the nervous energy billowing out from her; thick like fog and just as unsettling. It makes Taylor give a full-body shudder. “She’s freaking out,” not that her impassive nonchalance would betray it, but this _is_ Izzy de la Rosa they’re talking about, “like… heart-going-a-mile-a-minute you-know-what-I-mean freaking out.”

Ryder gives his fellow Nighthunter a quick jab with his elbow without looking away. “You get a personal not-invite too?”

“No,” she elbows him back—harder, “but I’ve been keeping tabs on her. Shiny Bentley picked her up outside _Flechette_ about an hour ago… I must’ve beat her here.”

“Not like it’s a long drive.”

“So what’s she been up to for an hour?” asks Taylor, mostly to himself. It earns him two deadpan stares and a flush of shame. Because what else would the city’s most important vampire be doing before a social evening where the club offered everything _but_ blood donors?

“Got it. Carry on.”

Katherine sweeps another look about the floor, focusing on the path Isadora leaves in her wake. “Weird not to see her tailed by… anyone. No guards, not even her daughters.” And her daughters go with her _everywhere._ That’s just one of those _things,_ you know — facts.

“I’m more interested in who Izzy’s got at her hip, myself.” Ryder comments; and a second look proves him right. It’s hard to catch pairs in the fast-paced movement of dancers, gamblers, drinkers and already-drunks, but she isn’t alone. Whoever keeps up beside her, face obscured from this angle by a wave of dark brown hair, does so easily. A little _too_ easily.

“Can’t get a good look at her…” He trails off. Suddenly, Taylor feels the burning question in his boyfriend’s eyes without fail.

A twitch of his nose — focusing as best he can… but it’s always harder with someone he doesn’t know. Harder still when they aren’t human, or alive for that matter. Finally Taylor exhales, face red from strain while he shakes his head. “I can’t get a read on her.”

Not even when the woman throws back her head in a laugh a little _too_ loud; the kind of laughter that comes from the want—or need—to be seen. To demand it of anyone within earshot. Lilting and sweet and _just enough_ to be heard over the club band.

Her fangs catch in the light of a chandelier overhead. As if they needed confirmation of _what_ she was.

Beside them Katherine’s breath hitches; caught in her throat with an icy grip. Taylor tears away from their target long enough to catch a glimpse, to see if she’s okay, and _holy shit she is not okay._ “Nik—” She’s white as a sheet, just as fragile too. He can feel her from here, the terror that clings to every bead of sweat on her forehead, then on his own.

Ryder doesn’t even open his mouth before it’s all bottled back up. Kathy’s always been good at that. Even for an empath, Taylor can’t quite understand how she does it. It’s frightening, honestly.

“You know her then.” Ryder isn’t asking. Katherine’s hands tighten on the railing as she nods.

“That’s… _fuck…”_ her shudder cuts her off, makes her start over, “that’s, uh, Priya. Priya Lacroix.”

 _Wait._ “The _fashion designer?”_ Just when Taylor thought he was getting a hang of keeping up with them, too.

“The former member of the Council of New York,” she corrects, “leader of Clan Lacroix.”

 _Oh._ He’s caught up now.

Ryder’s frown deepens. “Didn’t Smith say she was one of the ones who…” He trails off; doesn’t finish the thought — or maybe he can’t.

It’s okay though. They were all there. They know how it would have ended.

The woman Isadora coaxes through a roped-off doorway, a friendly hand resting on her lower back, is in league with the King of Vampires. She sold out Adrian, and Nadya, and Nadya’s girlfriend, and Cadence and all the rest of them; a traitor in the name of power.

Not… the _greatest_ look Isadora’s ever had. But surely there’s a reason… right?

Before the fae attendant can close off access to their private reservation, the woman herself stops and allows herself to take in the opulence of the club for the first time tonight. Not that it looks any different than normal… but everything makes a little more sense when part of her reverent moment includes looking directly up and _right at them._

Taylor’s heart catches in his throat. He waits, and watches…

Isadora gives a tiny nod, barely a twitch, before sliding the mask of a smile back in place and joining her guest out of sight.

Like a gunshot Katherine’s up and starting off towards their level’s interior rooms. “Come on,” she snaps at them over her shoulder, “we can cross them if we take the back stairs.”

Taylor and Ryder scramble up to join her. But before he gets too far the hunter doubles back, swallows the rest of his drink in one large gulp, and jogs to catch up.

* * *

The back stairwell is usually restricted to attendants and other staff. Tonight is no different, other than the fact that they have need of it, so restrictions don’t really apply. They approach the locked door and Ryder manages to coax Katherine back, both of them giving the halfling a wide berth to do his work. Sparks at his fingertips, cool to the touch like a glass of water on a hot summer day, iridescent with no-name colors as they fall on the handle and lock. The metal sizzles where they make contact, a thin stream of smoke makes his eyes water.

But he’s been practicing quite a lot recently, and it doesn’t take long before his fae magic overloads any other; cancels it out and allows the door to swing open of its own accord.

“You’re gettin’ better at that,” comments Ryder; and Taylor flushes at the compliment. He takes the lead — always the first to run into danger. Taylor and Kathy keep close behind.

“Lessons with Elric have really been paying off. It’s not all giant black pyres and feeling your horniness before you do.”

“Was that a hint?”

“Surprisingly not this time.”

Beside him Katherine pretends to gag.

It’s a mad rush to the ground level. Hunters stepping back automatically this time, and maybe it’s just Taylor but the second lock doesn’t take nearly as long. He blows the smoke from his index finger like an imaginary blowtorch snuffed out.

Pushing past them both, Kathy pokes her head out first. There’s a stake in her fist that wasn’t there a second ago, aimed and ready, but the tension doesn’t last long before she steps aside. “Now we’re fucked…”

When they join her in the corridor it makes sense. Stretching out from their doorway left and right — it looks almost endless in the dark. He can’t even see the distant lights from the gambling floor. Just another of the illustrious wonders this place is known so well for — and _so_ not the thing they need right now.

“How are we supposed to know where they went?” Taylor looks at each of the closed cherry-wood doors with growing dismay. “We don’t have time for this.”

“No fae magic trick up your sleeve?”

“I don’t have one for everything.”

“You had one for opening the pickle jar.”

Taylor scoffs indignantly. “That—That was a serious issue!”

“Can you two try and take _one thing_ seriously?” snaps Kathy, hissing between clenched teeth. “Lacroix skins her houseboys for _fun._ This isn’t a _dinner date_ going down.”

Nik _really_ doesn’t like being scolded though.

“Then what is it, All-Knowing Kathy?”

“What the fuck do you think?” When she doesn’t get an answer; “Isadora’s part of the bloodline, don’t you see? Made by Carlo, who was made by someone… I couldn’t find a name in Cade’s research. But Carlo’s Maker was _definitely_ one of the Augustine progeny.”

Butterflies flutter in Taylor’s gut as he thinks over her words. “So… what, Izzy’s on his side because of parents or something?”

Kathy hesitates to answer. _Never a good sign._ “I don’t know. I don’t — that’s why we need to find out what they’re up to. _Now.”_

The three of them keep close, in case the hallway is really as magical as it seems, and scour for any sign of… anything. Nik beats them out, pulling them back to him with a whispered _“There—”_ as he points to the only light source around — _was that even there before?_

Ye olde gas lamp flickers a soft orange glow up ahead. A beacon in the fabricated night. And in front of one door no different than any other door, but for the waves of emotion—cruelty—bitterness—amusement—boredom— _hunger_ —that definitely means they’re in the right place.

The trio hesitates several paces back, using the darkness as a cover while Ryder gives the door a more detailed look-over. “No guards posted,” —odd for a place like this, even Taylor knows that— “but the door doesn’t seem bewitched. If I get us close enough, Taylor, think you could use some of that empathy to hear what’s on the other side?”

If he can’t they’re sorta screwed, so better to try than not. The hunters slip across the hall with practiced stealth and ease; Katherine’s silent steps and Nik’s pretty epic (and definitely show-off-y) barrel roll.

They flank the door and wait—listen—before gesturing at Taylor to join. He just… tip toes over. No parkour needed. Joins Nik on his side and takes a moment to steady his breathing and focus with his eyes closed. They really don’t have a second chance at this.

Slowly the world around him begins to fade. The musty carpeting no longer tickling his nose; unable to taste the dryness of his own mouth. He drowns out three heartbeats all out of sync, the whistle of the air in a vent overhead, the hiss of the lamp above.

“Hey, Rook.”

“I’m kinda focusing.”

“I know. Look at me.”

All the sounds come rushing back like a tidal wave and Taylor opens his eyes a little nauseous for his troubles. He’s glad he did, though. Because for all their banter and mockery and how Ryder refuses to ever _ever_ open a pickle jar for him, there’s just something about the trust, honest and open, that makes the man’s eyes light up from the tiny flame overhead.

“You can do this.”

The sincerity makes his cheeks burn all the way down to his toes. Taylor has to look away for fear of drowning in the combined emotion of them. “Was that ever in doubt?”

“Don’t make me answer that.”

Attempt number two. Closed eyes, heartbeats—whistles—hisses all reduced to something less than white noise. Pushed back until he can force whatever’s left of his senses both inside and out through the door like it’s a sheer curtain instead of solid wood.

Slow, steadily the room comes into view behind his eyelids.

_Isadora sets her drink on the arm of her chair. One leg crossed over the other and the liquor in her glass jostles, ice clinking softly, but never spills._

_“What your King — and you by association — seem to have a hard time grasping is that down here things are simply done differently. There are rules of decorum. Legalities; traditions of respect that are followed to ensure everyone lives… calmly at the very least.”_

_“Why would His Majesty give a damn about anyone else’s lives here in this miserable mosquito net of a town?” The woman’s voice pitches with unsung laughter as she speaks. Her fingernails_ tap-tap-taptaping _repetitive on the side table where her martini rests._

_To her credit, Isadora remains cool and level-headed._

_“As I’m to understand it, all of the traditions carried out by our cousins overseas are of his making, are they not?”_

_“I guess so. I don’t bother slumming it with those gutter rats. If I’m in Europe, I’m launching a new line.”_

_“Then your Council, we’ll use that as a perfect example.”_

_“The Council is gone, Izzy darling. The Clans are disbanded, those idiots hiding in the tunnels have been smoked out. There’s only the King’s Realm, now.”_

_Every word seems to jab into Isadora like an individual knife. The glass in her hand creaks dangerously as she grips it tighter._

_“Bully for him then. My point stands.”_

_“Oh you poor thing… I don’t think you actually get_ why _I’m here, Lady de la Rosa. Which is sad, really, and totally on you for thinking you could get out of choosing sides.”_

 _The other woman shifts, switches her crossed legs and looks down her nose at Isadora; there’s a first time for everything. “I couldn’t give less of a fuck about the way_ you _want things done. Because that’s not how they’re going to stay.”_

_Isadora’s eyes flash dangerously. “Then enough of your placations. Why are you here, Priya?”_

_“That’s_ Princess _to you, hag.”_

_“Ha, don’t make me laugh.”_

_“I’m not here with a_ request. _I’m here with a command.”_

_“This is America, if you’ve forgotten. We don’t take kindly to kings here.”_

_“No, you don’t,” sneers Priya in reply, “but that’s only because you’ve been waiting for the real one and didn’t even know it. The throne is clear and the butt it was made for is finally seated and ready. His Majesty isn’t totally disgusted with the way you’ve been running things down in the South. You’re lucrative, profitable, and your family name inspires loyalty.”_

_“A concept you aren’t quite acquainted with, as I’m to understand it.”_

_Priya grinds her teeth together, lips pursed into a thin line._

_“You don’t know shit. But since you think you do… let’s make one thing clear. My loyalty is to power. Whoever’s got the most gets my vote.”_

_“Kings aren’t voted in.”_

_“It’s a fucking figure of speech. I’m on the winning team, whatever. The more you pull this shit, the less likely that option becomes for you.”_

_A smart woman; always in control — Isadora leans forward and sets her glass down on the table before them before she plucks her response out of careful words._

_“Continue then.”_

_Priya_ “hmmphs,” _sounds for a moment like she won’t out of pure spite. But she’s here for one reason, and she won’t risk that careful affair she has with the new power in charge._

 _“The King is choosing to_ graciously _overlook the fact that you should have already come to his Court to swear fealty to him. He likes your family line, or whatever. But it’s a one-time kindness._

 _“You, Isadora de la Rosa, are duty-bound by blood to serve Gaius Augustine. He’s the founder of your line — of all our lines actually — and when you took over the family business you took on the family oaths with it. You’ll come back with me, to New York, and take a pretty knee. Everything you do will be in his name, for his benefit, and in return you get to keep your weird little…_ playpen _with the mortals until he decides otherwise.”_

Ryder’s hand, heavy and warm against the ice in his veins, drags Taylor out of the room and back with the hunters. The man’s face is etched with worry; his expression grim.

“What’s the matter? What are they saying?”

He doesn’t waste time shushing — just focuses back on the vampires with a lump in his throat.

 _Isadora raises her chin slightly. “And if I do not agree to the King’s…_ generous _offer?”_

_“Do I really have to spell it out for you? I thought you were supposed to be smart.”_

Don’t do it Izzy. He wants to scream; burst in there with Katherine’s stake and just do the thing. But he’s frozen in place. At the mercy of the undecided future of not just the city’s vampires, but New Orleans herself.

_“Well,” Priya snaps with impatience, “what’s it gonna be?”_

_Isadora closes her eyes._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the first time there’s no way the end of this book brings the story to a close. _Bound by Destiny II_ ended up bringing so much to the table that the story just couldn’t be told in one installment. 
> 
> That’s why _Bound by Destiny II part 2_ is coming in fast! I had absolutely no idea when I started this book--let alone this _series_ \--that it would grow to be this large in story, world, and impact. And I love to be surprised every day by it!
> 
> Book 5 will premiere on-time next Wednesday and continue the story told in _Bloodbound 2._ I dunno about you guys, but with over a year gone since BB ended this story is the only thing keeping me going. With book 4 has come so many new and amazing readers and I’m forever grateful. The comments you guys leave here and on my _(new main and ‘Choices’-focused)_ blog, clansayeed, absolutely make my day and make bringing this story to life a joy.
> 
> Which has to be enough, since nothing about the story at this point in the game is exactly happy for our characters. As always, comments and critique on both the end and the book in total are more than welcomed, they’re encouraged. And I hope to see everyone back next week as we pick up where this book left off. 
> 
> Thank you again!


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